. 



MEMORIAL 



CHARLES SUMNER. 



"His eulogy is his life; his epitaph is the general grief; 

HIS MONUMENT, BUILDED BY HIS OWN HANDS, IS THE ETERNAL 
STATUTES OF FREEDOM." 

Senator Anthony's Speech in the United States Senate. 




BOSTON: 

1874. 






Commontiofaltf) of iHassacjjusttts. 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE LEGISLATURE. 



WRIGHT & POTTER, 

PRINTERS TO THE STATE, 



CHARLES SUMNER. 



COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



In Senate, June 16, 1874. 

Ordered, That the Joint Special Committee appointed to take suit- 
able measures to provide for the delivery of au Oration upon the life, 
character and public services of Charles Sumner, be directed to pre- 
pare a Memorial Volume containing the proceedings in the Legislature 
on the receipt of the intelligence of the decease of our late Senator; the 
account of the Funeral and Commemorative Services, and a copy of the 
Eulogy delivered by George William Curtis, and the Poem by John 
G. Wiiittikr ; and that five thousand copies of such Memorial be printed 
and bound for the use of the Legislature. And that each member of the 
Legislature, the Clerk and Chaplain of each branch, and the Sergeant- 
at-arms be allowed ten copies each, and the other officers of the Legisla- 
ture, and the reporters to whom seats are allotted in the two branches, 
and each city and town in the Commonwealth, one copy each; the 
residue to be distributed or otherwise disposed of according to the best 
discretion of the Committee. 

Adopted. g. N. GIFEORD, Clerk. 



Hodse of Representatives, June 17, 1S74. 
Adopted in concurrence. 

GEO. A. HARDEN, Clerk. 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTER 



The undersigned Joint Special Committee, acting under the preced- 
ing Order, herewith submit the Memorial Volume which they were 
directed to prepare. 

The Committee have asked Mr. William Howell Reed to give his 
editorial supervision to the several reports and documents, in order to 
insure a completeness and precision, without which the work would lose 
its value. They are entirely satisfied Avith his work, and as the volume 
has taken form under his direction, they may say with propriety that 
they believe it will fully meet the wishes of the General Court. 

MOODY MERRILL. 
GEORGE F. VERRY. 
JOSHUA B. SMITH. 
WILLARD P. PHILLIPS. 
SMITH It. PHILLIPS. 



CONTENTS. 



Legislative Order. paob 
7 

Report of the Committee, 

7 

Death of Charles Sumner, . 

Action of the Executive and Legislative Departments: 
Message of the Governor, .... 
Proceedings in the Senate, .... 
Proceedings in the House of Representatives, ... 43 

Proclamation by the Governor. . „. 

' •••••.04 

The Obsequies, 

65 

Commemorative Observances, June 9, 1874, ... 91 

Poem by John Greenleaf Whither, . n , 

•••••.»/ 

Eulogy by George William Curtis, June 9, 1874, ... l0 7 

Appendix : 

Eulogy by Carl Schurz, April 29, 1874, ... 179 

Oration by Robert B. Elliott, April 14, 1874, . . .265 
Sermon by Henry W. Foote, March 22, 1874, . . 2 S9 

TAELET 317 



DEATH OF CHARLES SUMNER. 



DEATH OF CHARLES SUMKER. 



Chaeles Sumner died at his residence, in Washing- 
ton, at thirteen minutes before three o'clock on Wednes- 
day afternoon, the eleventh day of March, 1874. 

He left his seat in the Senate Chamber for the last 
time on Tuesday afternoon, with a premonition of the 
sufferings which so soon ended in his death. 

About nine o'clock in the evening, he sent for his 
physician, Dr. Joseph Tabor Johnson, who administered 
the prescription of morphia, made by Dr. Brown-Sequard, 
but the pain increased. At twenty minutes past ten, 
the doctor announced that the usual reaction had not 
taken place, and that his patient was in serious danger. 
His pulse could scarcely be felt. Powerful restoratives 
were at once given, external applications made, and a 
consultation of physicians promptly called. Through 
the night, stimulants were administered, but at eight 
o'clock on Wednesday morning, it was felt that the 
patient was in a hopeless condition. 

About ten o'clock the stupor passed away, and Mr. 
Sumner recognized his friends, with a few words of 
greeting. He complained of great fatigue, but of no 
pain, except when he moved of his own strength. He 
was, he said, tired in every nerve and muscle, even in 



12 CHARLES SUMNER. 

his bones. He wanted rest, and begged for more mor- 
phine to allay his weariness. 

He had spoken several times during the morning of 
the Civil Rights Bill, whose passage he had much at 
heart. On one occasion, recognizing Judge Hoar, who 
was standing at his bedside, he said, "You must take 
care of the Civil Bights Bill, Judge; " to which the reply 
was made, "We will take care of it." 

At a later period he said, "Judge, it is very good in 
you to come." About two hours before the Senator's 
death, sitting on a low chair by his bed, and chafing his 
hand and arm, the Judge said, "I wish we could do 
something to make your hands warmer." To which Mr. 
Sumner replied, after a pause, and looking steadily 
into the face of his friend, "You never will" 

At a still later moment, and about fifteen minutes 
before Mr. Sumner died, giving his hand to Judge Hoar, 
who was at his side, he said, "Judge, tell Emerson how 
much I love and revere him." To which Judge Hoar 
replied, "He said of you, that he never knew so white a 
soul." 

With the exception of a word or two casually spoken 
a few moments afterwards, this message to Mr. Emerson 
was the last utterance of Mr. Sumner. 

After sleeping a few moments he was awakened, prob- 
ably by a violent nausea, and raised himself in bed ; but 
after the convulsive effort for relief was made, and even 
while his friends were bathing his face and lips, and 
before he could be laid back upon his pillow, the action 
of the heart ceased, and Charles Sumner was dead. 

High medical authority states the disorder to have 



HIS DEATH. 13 

been Angina Pectoris, in this instance arising from an 
enlarged and diseased state of the right coronary artery. 
It is a disorder which often terminates fatally after a few 
paroxysms. 

Twenty-three years of illustrious service to the Com- 
monwealth and the Nation, give to Massachusetts the 
high privilege of a grateful recognition of their priceless 
value. 

"No pyramids set off his memories," but those who 
loved him for his gracious personal qualities of heart 
and life, may join in the requiem : 

" And now he rests ; his greatness and his sweetness 
No more shall seem at strife, 
And death has moulded into calm completeness 
The statue of his life." 



Action of the Executive and Legislative 
Departments. 



MESSAGE OF THE GOVERNOR. 



COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Executive Department, Boston, March 12, 1874. 
Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: 

It becomes my painful duty to announce to you the 
death of our senior member in the United States Senate. 
Yesterday afternoon, at ten minutes before three o'clock, 
in his own rooms at Washington, at the age of sixty- 
three years, Charles Sumner departed this life. 

Eighteen years ago he was struck down at his place in 
the vanguard of freedom, and from that terrible wound, 
nigh unto death, he never fully recovered, though he 
struggled against its effects with all the forces of his 
nature, and was aided by the best efforts of medical sci- 
ence. But he had regained such a measure of health and 
strength, that of late his intimate friends and associates 
were encouraged to hope he might be spared to us for 
some years longer. The shock of his death comes upon 
us suddenly, and when least expected. The last enemy 
of man has finally triumphed, and our great orator, 
scholar, statesman, philanthropist, — the champion of uni- 
versal freedom and the equal rights of man, — after a life 
of labor and usefulness, has fallen under the burden of 
disease long and heroically borne. 

Of him, as much as of any man of his time, it may be 

said, that he lived not for himself or his kindred. A 

special representative of this State, his Commonwealth 

was the whole country. For years one of the most prorn- 

3 



18 CHARLES STJMXEK. 

incut and influential citizens of the United States, he was 
recognized by the civilized world as one of the foremost 
advocates of struggling humanity. Thus acknowledged 
at home and abroad, his death will be deeply and sin- 
cerely mourned, not alone by his State and this Nation, 
but by every people and country reaching out for a 
higher and freer life. 

Twenty- three years ago this spring he was elected to 
the United States Senate, and at the time of his death he 
was the senior member of that body in length of consecu- 
tive service. His devotion to the duties of his place was 
an example worthy of general commendation. He rarely 
allowed personal considerations of any kind to interfere 
with his public obligations. Had he not been blessed 
with an iron constitution, he must long ago have suc- 
cumbed to the weight of his labors. Devoted to many 
phases of one comprehensive cause, the advancement of 
man ; throwing himself with great energy and power into 
whatever work he undertook ; it was given him to see a 
noble triumph of that for which he aspired and wrought. 
Thousands and thousands of men and women find the 
way of life easier and brighter because of him, and in 
almost every town and village of the country, there will 
be praises of honor to his name. 

During his long period of service some mistakes he 
doubtless made, for despite his great learning and intel- 
lectual grasp he somewhat lacked the every-day wisdom 
frequently given to those much his inferiors. But this 
was in no sense to his discredit as a man. His aims were 
high, his purposes were pure. His voice was that of an 
honest man, his endeavors were those of an upright 
statesman. His moral integrity stands out as a sublime 
figure in these later years. While the atmosphere around 
him was foul with corruption, no stain of suspicion ever 
fell upon him. However other public servants prostituted 
their positions for selfish ends, we all felt sure that 



MESSAGE OE THE GOVERNOR. 19 

Charles Sumner would not be smirched by any dis- 
closures or investigations. This single fact alone is 
enough to crown him with glory. 

Gentlemen, you must have unspeakable satisfaction 
at this hour in your recent action on the matter relative 
to the army register and national battle-flags. It was 
communicated to Mr. Sumner while he was in the full 
possession of all his faculties, and we may well believe 
that he rejoiced in this vindication by the constituents 
whom he had so long and so faithfully served. I thank 
you for giving me the pleasure of transmitting to him, by 
the hands of one whom he honored, a representative of 
those for whom he had so heroically struggled, this fresh 
token of the regard in which he was held by the people 
of this Commonwealth. 

It was his desire, often expressed, that he might fall, 
when fall he must, while at the post of duty. His wishes 
in this respect were gratified. The day before his death 
he was at the Senate Chamber attending to official business 
as our agent and servant; and one of his last utterances, 
when in the very arms of death, was a request to an 
intimate friend to take care of the civil rights bill, the 
passage of which he had much at heart. Thus he went 
out from among us, with his last moment of conscious- 
ness still pleading, as he had so often and so eloquently 
plead through many years of vigorous manhood, for the 
down-trodden and oppressed. 

The great Senator has fallen, and we shall see him no 
more on earth. Being dead he yet speaketh — by the 
hopes he inspired, the works he accomplished and the 
recollection of his virtues. In a few days his mortal 
remains will be laid away in the grave. Be it ours to 
guard most tenderly the memory he hath left to us, 
and approve ourselves the fit constituents of Charles 
Sumner. 

W. B. WASHBUKX. 



20 CHARLES SUMNER. 



COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



In Senate, March 12, 1874. 

Ordered, That the message of His Excellency the Gov- 
ernor, communicating the melancholy intelligence of the 
sudden death of Hon. Charles Sumner, senior Senator 
of Massachusetts in the Congress of the United States, 
he referred to a Joint Special Committee of five members 
of the Senate with such as the House may join, with 
instructions to consider and report what measures it may 
be expedient and proper to adopt as a recognition of the 
important services of the late distinguished Senator, and 
a public acknowledgment of the grateful esteem in which 
his memory and character are held by the people of the 
Commonwealth. 

And Messrs. Banks, Norcross, Washburn, Hawes 
and Latiirop were appointed on the part of the Senate. 

Sent down for concurrence. 

S. N. GIFFORD, Clerk. 



Hol'SE of Representatives, March 12, 1874. 



Concurred, and Messrs. Phillips of Salem, Smith of 
Cambridge, Codman of Boston, Kimball of Boston, 
Adams of Quincy, Dickinson of Amherst, Noble of 
Westfield, Phillips of Springfield, Buffum of Lynn, 
Blunt of Haverhill, Slade of Somerset, Cummings of 
Woburn, and Estabrook of Worcester, are joined. 



GEO. A. MARDEN, Clerk. 



RESOLUTIONS. 21 



RESOLUTIONS. 



In Senate, March 13, 1874. 

The following Resolutions were reported by Hon. Nathaniel P. 
Banks, in behalf of the Joint Special Committee on the Message of 
the Governor, announcing the death of Mr. Sumner : — 



COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
In the Year One Thousand Eight nundred and Seventy-Four. 

EESOLVES ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES SUMNER. 

Resolved, That the Legislature of Massachusetts re- 
ceives the sad intelligence communicated by His Excel- 
lency the Governor, of the sudden death of the Honorable 
Charles Sumner, senior Senator of Massachusetts in the 
Congress of the United States, with emotions of profound 
and abiding grief. 

Resolved, That, in this sudden calamity, Massachusetts 
mourns the loss of an inestimable public servant, whose 
separate qualities are sometimes found in individual citi- 
zens, but rarely united in one man. His industry was 
tireless, and his fidelity unlimited. In the prosecution of 
those great measures to which he gave his support, his 
energy, constancy and courage were unconquerable. In 
his contests for the supremacy of the principles upon which 
he had staked the hazard of his life, he was unmoved by 
assault and insensible to fear. Against the allurements of 
power and of corruption, in every form, he stood a tower 
of adamant. At every crisis in public affairs his bearing 
was that of one who, confident as to his owu duty, was 



22 CHARLES SUMNER. 

considerate of the rights of others. His extraordinary 
acquisitions as a scholar, made him eminent among able 
men in every department of learning. He was an accom- 
plished legist and jurist, and as an orator unsurpassed 
by any man of his time.- The vigor of his intellect; his 
great experience and capacity ; his philanthropic spirit ; 
his ardent patriotism ; his irrepressible love of liberty ; 
his limitless devotion to the rights of man, gave to all 
classes of the people, to all sections of the country, and 
to the world at large, a permanent interest in the pro- 
longation of his labors and his life. 

Resolved, That, deploring the public loss, it is yet a 
consolation that the people of the Commonwealth share in 
the triumphs, resulting, in great part, from the labors of 
their illustrious Senator, to which in the agony of death 
he gave his last and noblest thoughts, and which culmi- 
nated in the destruction of an odious and sectional system 
of chattel slavery ; in the enfranchisement of four million 
slaves; in their political and social elevation; and 1he 
incorporation of the sublime doctrines of the Declaration 
of American Independence into the text and body of the 
Constitution of the Republic. 

Eesolved, That in the galaxy of her illustrious chil- 
dren, whose colonial, revolutionary, constitutional and 
military services shed an undying lustre upon her name, 
Massachusetts has no worthier son ! 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 23 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 



Hon. Henry S. Washburn, of the First Suffolk District, then 
spoke as follows upon these Resolutions : — 

Mr. President : There are times in the experience of 
most men when, overtaken by sudden bereavement, they 
feel the poverty of human speech to express emotions 
which struggle for utterance. This is as true of com- 
munities as of individuals — moments when a voice almost 
audible seems to say to us, "Be still, and know that I am 
God !" "I was dumb and opened not my mouth, because 
Thou didst it." We have reached such a point in our 
experience as a people. An event has transpired which, 
though not unexpected, has nevertheless come upon us as 
a thief in the night, — as it were, in a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye, — and we labor for fitting terms in 
which to express the grief that oppresses us. 

The portion of time occupied by the life of the illus- 
trious dead, covers a most important period in the annals 
of the nation ; and it is quite impossible in the hour 
allotted for this service for any one to present even a brief 
analysis of his life-work. I shall not attempt to do it. 
This task will, in clue time, be submitted to other and 
abler hands. Let us rather mingle our tears and sym- 
pathies together, as we bow before the affliction which 
has come upon us — sorrowing most of all that the places 
which once knew him will know him no more forever. 
Given to us by Providence, as we must believe, for the 



24 CHARLES SUMNER. 

accomplishment of a great mission upon the earth, he has 
finished the work allotted to him ; oh, how worthily ; and 
now, early in the" golden afternoon of life, weary and 
worn from the fields of his triumphs and victories, he 
rests from his labors and his works they will follow him. 

It is an impressive reflection that there is no home in 
all the Commonwealth where sorrowing kindred wait for 
his remains when they may be borne hither from the cap- 
ital of the nation. AYith the exception of a sister living 
upon the far-off Pacific shore, he was alone in the world ; 
and so the more, Mr. President, are we all mourners 
to-day. -The State he has done so much to honor, will 
receive all that was mortal of him, and lay him tenderly 
to rest upon her bosom, amid the tears and benedictions 
of all the people. 

Mr. President, only four days ago the Senate adopted 
Resolutions of respect to the memory of an ex-President 
of the United States — a venerable man, who, in the ful- 
ness of years, has passed away from the scenes and 
responsibilities of earth; and now we pause to pay a 
similar tribute of love and regard for one greater than he 
— one nearer and dearer to all our hearts, the recognized 
champion of the oppressed, the friend of the friendless 
the wide world over. 

Well might we be distrustful for the future, as, one by 
one, the men who have upheld our country's honor and 
fame, faint or fall ; were we not assured that others, brave 
and true, will come forth to fill the places made vacant by 
their departure ; and that to-day, upon a thousand altars, 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, they are ready to pledge 
anew their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, 
that they will transmit to their children the heritage we 
have received from our fathers — the priceless blessing of 
a Republican Government. 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 25 



Hon. George B. Loring, President of the Senate, having called 
Mr. Bailey to the Chair, made the following address : — 

Mr. President : The sad and startling event which has 
suddenly arrested the attention and stricken the heart of 
this Commonwealth and the country, falls with peculiar 
and touching force upon us who are assembled here. 
For nearly a generation of men the name of Chaeles 
Sumner has been held dear and sacred in these halls. 
His humane and lofty sentiments have inspired the legis- 
lative action of Massachusetts to high and honorable 
purpose in the great public trials of our day; at his feet 
have sat those who have pointed the way to an immortal 
service, and whose short and brilliant career has taught 
the world what a free Commonwealth can do on the field 
of battle, and in the executive council, to purify and 
elevate mankind ; and his name has been a watchword for 
those who believe in humanity, and integrity, and jus- 
tice, and equality, as the foundation of an imperishable 
Republic. 

Around Charles Sumner as Senator and citizen, as 
associate and friend, have circled, for a quarter of a cen- 
tury, the best aspiration, the highest culture, the loftiest 
purpose, and the most earnest hopes of our people, high 
and low, rich and poor. To him it was given in the 
same hour to warm the thought of the scholar, and to 
cheer the heart of the down-trodden and the oppressed. 
As he walked along the path of life, he led with one hand 
the wise and the thoughtful to a lofty sphere of duty, 
and with the other hand the poor and the lowly to 
the great opportunity and the sweet consolation which 
attends untrammelled manhood. Xot always in accord 
with popular demand, he was always found proudly in 
the fore-front of popular honor. Xot always an ingenious 
legislator, he furnished the broad, general principles upon 
which the more expert might build with entire safety and 

4 



26 CHARLES SUMMER. 

for the highest welfare of the country. To his mind the 
animating sentiment of a Republic is virtue ; and so he 
demanded for the people complete social and civil equal- 
ity, and of the government a patriotic and honest admin- 
istration of public affairs. Exposed at all times by his 
sturdy and uncompromising faith to the severest criti- 
cism, lie set his standard of public service high, and made 
his demands upon his associates imperative. No man can 
now recall a Avord of toleration for a low and equivocal 
design which ever fell from his lips; and many a man 
can remember the kind encouragement which he warmly 
bestowed upon humane and manly purpose. 

It is usual, Mr. President, to attribute the result of a 
brilliant and successful voyage through life to the favoring 
gales of fortune. Of many of us this may be true ; but 
not so of him whose high and commanding career we are 
suddenly called upon to contemplate in all its grandeur, 
and whose untimely death we now deplore. To no man, 
in any age, has the law of cause and consequence been 
more thoroughly and consistently applied than to Mr. 
Sumner ; from no man in public life have we been 
able to promise mankind a larger and more benignant 
service than from him whose characteristics, from youth 
upward, were peculiarly adapted to the times in which 
he lived. A constant, patient and devoted student, he 
stored his mind with the broadest principles of humane 
and Christian statesmanship as the foundation of his serv- 
ice in the cause of freedom ; he became familiar with the 
most righteous doctrines of international law, as a guide 
for the Republic in its relations with foreign powers; he 
established a fraternal sympathy between himself and 
large-hearted statesmen and philanthropists everywhere; 
he joined himself with the fraternity of scholars through- 
out the world; he brought to his side, in all his trials, 
the thoughtful of his own land, and the aspiring of States 
less favored ; and he elevated the political controversies 



LEGISLATIVE PEOCEEDIXGS. 27 

in which he was engaged up to a standard attractive to 
the cultivated and sincere. Not by accident, nor by 
good fortune alone, did he accomplish this. It was not 
accident which, in his youth, opened the best homes in 
Boston to him, in order that affectionate parents might 
set his example before their children ; it was not accident 
which gathered around his early manhood a circle of lit- 
erature and refinement, where the last bright volume and 
the rising author found a welcome into the best compan- 
ionship of letters ; it was not an accident which secured 
for him the esteem of the best jurists of America, and 
the admiration of the great laAvyers who throng West- 
minster Hall; it was not accident which led him to 
advocate the doctrine of peace as the only foundation of 
true national grandeur, and to proclaim the doctrine of 
freedom as the only sure foundation of the American 
Republic ; it was not accident which elevated him to the 
championship of human equality, and brought him to mar- 
tyrdom in the holy cause. No. The high purpose, the 
devotion to the best mental culture, the eager demand for 
the companionship of the wisest and the best, the reso- 
lute determination to get wisdom as the " principal thing," 
"more precious than rubies," the earty, constant and last- 
ing intimacy with high-toned speculation, the defiance of 
social position before the imperative call of conscience, 
the unyielding grasp upon a grand and fundamental idea, 
the dedication of himself to the great principles, the lofty 
scorn of party dictation which marked his course, com- 
bined to build for him an imposing monument of civil 
labors, Avhose symmetry and fine proportion no mere 
chance could create and which no accident can destroy. 
He is known, and will be known, in American history, as 
The Senator ; no more, no less. One grand, imposing, 
perfected structure is his, complete in all its parts, dedi- 
cated to one service — a type of what can be accomplished 
by the American statesman whose honesty and devotion 



28 CHARLES SUMXER. 

secure the confidence of the people, and whose heroism 
and courage command their admiration and lay hold upon 
:i controlling and commanding force, before which all 
political machinery is powerless and contemptible. Let 
him stand forever in our annals as The Senator — the 
product of those institutions which are founded on popu- 
lar intelligence and freedom, and rely for their defence 
and development upon an educated and Heaven-directed 

conscience. 

And now that he is gone, the best sentiments of our 
hearts struggle for expression. Fortunate as he was, not 
so much in the accidents of public life as in that constant 
preparation which made him the central figure of every 
momentous event in a most critical period in our history, 
he was also fortunate in the respect and admiration which 
his career secured from all classes and orders of men. 
For him the poet sang, the historian wrought, the scholar 
labored, the orator warmed, the suffering prayed, the 
emancipated poured forth their blessings. When we 
remember his characteristics and call up the events of 
his life, to no man of our day and generation so truly 
applies that familiar and delightful tribute, drawn from 
the ancient tongue he loved so w r ell : — 

" Justum et tenacem propositi virum, 
Non civium ardor prava jubentium, 
Non vultus instantis tyranni 
Mente quatit solida." 

And as we contemplate his closing hours, to no man 
belongs more sublimely those diviner words : — 

"Mark the perfect man and behold the upright; for the end of 
thai man is peace. 11 



LEGISLATIVE PEOCEEDIXGS. 29 



Hon. Francis B. Hayes, of the Second Suffolk District, said :— 

Mr. President : At this time, when death has struck 
clown with awful suddenness the senior representative of 
this Commonwealth in the councils of the Nation, Ave 
cannot refrain from the public expression of sorrow, nor 
fail to manifest our respect for the memory of the 
departed. It is the reward of the patriot to be remem- 
bered gratefully by his countrymen after he has passed 
from earth ; and we but pay a just debt in recognizing, 
with the warmest expression of our hearts, the great ser- 
vices which the illustrious statesman, whose death we 
deplore, has rendered to the State and to all mankind. 
We do not allow our political opinions nor our personal 
preferences, in the consideration of subjects upon which 
men may honestly entertain different views, to prevent us 
from doing full justice to him who lies now in the cold 
embrace of the invincible conqueror of mortality. We 
all hasten to honor him whose useful and noble life has 
added lustre to the honor of our State and Nation. 

The character of Charles Sumner was typical of his 
New England birthplace. His mind was as capacious as 
the ocean which beats upon our coast. In his principles 
he was as immovable as our lofty hills. Though he might 
not have been so demonstrative as many in the expres- 
sions of cordiality, yet his large heart embraced in its 
affections all mankind, and throbbed with the warmest 
sympathy for the weak and friendless. The earliest 
efforts of his manhood were directed to the amelioration 
of the wretched prisoner in his cell, and in his maturer 
years he knew no rest until the oppressed were freed 
from bondage. Justice having been done to the slave, he 
was then equally anxious that justice should be done to 
the master. The down-trodden could always look up to 
him in hope and confidence to alleviate their misery and 



30 CHARLES SUMNER. 

to raise them from degradation. He was emphatically 
the friend of the friendless. 

Mr. Sumner was a thoroughly honest man. Even 
calumny, so ready to destroy the character of good men, 
dared not breathe a suspicion against the integrity and 
purity of life of our deceased friend. He could not be 
approached by any unworthy inducements. His opinions 
were always frankly and boldly expressed. He cared not 
if he differed from those of high social or official position 
if he believed his cause was right. He was no time- 
server. While not regardless of the good opinion of 
men, he looked first for the approval of Heaven. How- 
ever his associates in public life might differ with him, 
however much some of his friends might regret the 
course he thought proper to adopt at times upon matters 
of great public interest, yet all will readily accord to him 
their respect for his manliness and unflinching courage 
in expressing his opinions, which were founded, upon his 
honest convictions. 

Mr. President, I did not rise to pronounce a eulogy 
upon Charles Sumner. My feeble words can add noth- 
ing to his glorious fame. I simply desire to express my 
appreciation of the great loss which has happened to all 
in the death of the ripe scholar, the distinguished states- 
man, the true patriot and honest man. He was a resi- 
dent of the district which I have the honor to represent 
in this body. But no local boundaries limited his useful- 
ness. He belonged not merely to Massachusetts, but to 
the Nation and the whole world, which have been bene- 
fited by bis life, devoted to the sacred cause of truth and 
to the relief of suffering humanity. 

It will be, I doubt not, Mr. President, a melancholy 
pleasure for us all to unite in manifesting in the most 
appropriate manner our respect for the memory of the 
long tried, faithful and honored servant of this Common- 
wealth, now at rest from his labors. 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 31 

said:- TH ° MAS ^ ST0NE ' ° f thG Cape Distdct > *** rose and 

Mr. President : Amid the wreaths so rare in their 
beauty that are laid upon the coffin of our deceased Sena- 
tor, permit me to place a simple wild-flower as a token 
of my humble love. For truly has the great iconoclast 
entered into the house of my idols and stricken from his 
pedestal one before whom my soul had long bowed with 
reverence akin to devotion. Ever since I read his « True 
Grandeur of Nations " Charles Sumner has been to me a 
model statesman, towering high above his fellows. And 
amid all the political changes of our country, amid all the 
clouds and sunshine that have been thrown upon his path- 
way, my soul has been true to its first love. I was proud 
to be in the minority last year, as I was glad to be in the 
majority this year, on that vote which tore the hateful 
cypress from his brow, just in time for death to place his 
laurel there. Mr. President, there will be noble praises 
sung over Charles Sumner's grave, and grand orations 
pronounced on his life and death. But nowhere in the 
Old Bay State will Charles Sumner have more sincere 
mourners than among the sand-hills of my native shore, 
where old Atlantic, beneath the rude winds of March, is 
thundering a requiem alone worthy the fame of Massa- 
chusetts' noblest son. To us, amid all the suspicion and 
doubt which have fallen in lighter or darker cloud upon 
other statesmen, Charles Sumner has ever stood forth 
sublime in his purpose and grand in his integrity,— 

"As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."' 

An eagle-eyed statesman, he saw the foe before he was 
reached by our shorter vision, and he met that foe when 



32 CH A TILES SUMNER. 

his great heart, which death has now stilled, was the only 
drum to beat the charge, and his own grand inspiration 
his only henchman in the field. He has died, leaving no 
superior behind in his chosen field, and few — for our 
country all too few — who, in grandness of aim and integ- 
rity to right, are worthy to be called his peers. But 
Charges Sumner has left to posterity a character and a 
fame after which, it is to be hoped, future statesmen will 
model their own. 

Drape the banner my State, 

For thy chieftain lies low ; 
In the field of his conquest 

He has met his last foe. 

Hang his shield on thy wall — 

It was dented for thee ; 
His war-cry no longer 

Waketh mountain and lea. 

The March winds are moaning 

O'er thy forest and plain, 
As back to his mother 

( nines tlry child once again. 

Now his life's work is done, 

Let him sleep on thy breast ; 
For of all our broad States 

He has loved thee the best. 



The following remarks were then made by Hon. E. II. Lathrop, 
of the First Hampden District: — ' 

Mr. President: While I fully accord with the senti- 
ment of the Resolutions, and desire for myself to add 
thus publicly my fealty to, and respect for, the memory 
of the Senator who has departed, it is to me, sir, a mat- 
ter of comfort and congratulation that when a Common- 
wealth sits in the shadow of a great calamity the shackles 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 33 

of party and the prejudice of faction fade away and fall. 
As has been well said by the Senator who preceded me, 
I have no eulogy to pronounce upon the character of 
Charles Sumner ; the path of the history of State and 
Nation for the last twenty-live years is illustrated with the 
monumental record of his life. 

It is peculiarly appropriate, as it is true, while the 
spirit of the Commonwealth and of the Nation stands in 
bowed bereavement at the door of his open tomb, that 
there should exist within the hearts of the people the 
elements of a great content, — content in this, that the 
rare symmetry of this man's life is so roundly and nobly 
perfected in his death. 

It remained for him, in the later days of his life, 
to illustrate to the people of this Commonwealth how 
possible it is for one large-brained, great-hearted, clear- 
visioned man to be nearer right than the whole Common- 
wealth of Massachusetts ; and how happily is it true that, 
after the soreness and the sorrow, and just as his hand 
was lifted to knock at the gates of the Everlasting City ; 
just before the call was sounded which summoned him to 
solve the great sad problem of the immortality, there 
came to him, by tender ways and honored paths, the 
renew r ed loyalty, fealty and faith of his Commonwealth. 

Now, sir, to the tender tributes that have been offered 
to his memory, not only in the hearts of this people but 
by Senators in this chamber, I can add nothing more 
tender than has been sung by the sweet-voiced laureate 
of England, of one whom England loved and honored : — 

" We know him now ; all narrow jealousies 
Are silent ; and we see him as he moved, 
How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise ; 
With what sublime repression of himself, 
And in what limits and how tenderly — 
Not swaying to this faction or to that, 
Not making his high place the lawless perch 

5 



34 CHARLES SUMXER. 

Of winged ambition, or a vantage ground 

For pleasure. But through all this tract of years 

Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, 

Before a thousand peering littlenesses, 

In that fierce light that beats upon a [public man] 

And blackens every blot; for where is he 

Who dares foreshadow for an only son 

A lovelier life, a more unstained than his ? " 



Hon. Xatiianiel P. Banks, of the Second Middlesex District, 
then adih-essed the Senate in the following words, — after which the 
Resolutions were unanimously adopted, amid profound silence, by 
a rising vote. 

The death of Mr. Sumner has fallen upon us with such 
startling effect, Mr. President; it has been "so unadvised, 
so sudden, so like the lightning, which is here and gone 
ere one can say, r it lightens,'" that it is quite impossible 
for us to present even the general appreciation of the 
character of the great man whose loss the State we repre- 
sent is especially called to mourn. The members of the 
Senate have been engaged in a more practical and import- 
ant duty than that of presenting their opinions as to the 
services of the illustrious Senator, in making arrange- 
ments for the last final honors that are to be paid him by 
the State and the people of this Commonwealth. Yet, 
nevertheless, sir, it is due to his memory, and still more 
to the State and ourselves, to suggest some views of his 
services and character, however imperfectly they may be 
presented. 

Mr. Sumner had an established reputation before he 
was charged with the partial representation of the people 
of Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States. In 
his own honored university at Cambridge he was a marked 
man. He was the flower of its literary societies, and the 
recipient of high classical honors ; and had been offered 
an appointment to the law professorship as the successor 
of Judge Story. His eloquent voice had recalled the 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 35 

virtues and the genius of some of the most brilliant men 
of the time-scholars, artists, philanthropists and jurists 
His name was celebrated in the capitals of Europe. He 
was, therefore, not unknown when he came to the service 
of the Commonwealth. It is as the Representative of 
the Commonwealth in the Senate of the United States 
however, that his character will be judged and his fame 
will rest. 

The office of Senator of the United States was, in point 
of fact, the only public office he ever held. It is true he 
had held a commission at an early period of his life as 
one of the ministerial officers of the Government of the 
United States, but it was an uncongenial position, unsuited 
to his capacity, not at all in accordance with his prin- 
ciples ; and when an important change had been made in 
the legislation of the country, it became morally impos- 
sible for him to discharge its duties. So, sir, the office 
of Senator of the United States was, in truth, the only 
public office he ever held. How well, sir, he filled that 
high station, we all know. None of us can well state in 
such terms as here occur to us the full measure of his 
success. But we can all comprehend and appreciate the 
great events of his life, which in themselves convey to 
the world a proper estimate of his capacity and character. 
His election occurred in April, 185L* A few months 
earlier the Congress of the United States had passed what 
was known as the compromise measures, designed to 
settle all questions of difficulty between the North and 
South. 

Mr. Sumner was elected and entered upon his term of 
service as an opponent of these acts. He stood, therefore, 
among those with whom he was officially associated, as a 
representative of a distinct principle, in opposition to the 
policy which the Government had adopted. The Admin- 
istration party, with the honored and distinguished ex- 
President of the United States, Mr. Fillmore, at its head, 



36 CHARLES SUMNER. 

whose memory was appropriately noticed the other day ; 
whose mortal remains but yesterday, sir, were waiting, 
in common with those of our own beloved Senator, the 
last sad honors of their respective States, before the tomb 
should shut them from our sight forever,— Mr. Fillmore 
and the great men associated with him, the two houses 
of Congress, and a large majority of the people, had 
determined that a policy of concession was necessary 
and just. It was assumed to be the voice of the people. 
It would lead, as they supposed, to peace, and avoid 
an impending fratricidal war. Against that policy Mr. 
Sumxer appealed as the representative of a different 
spirit. He conceded nothing. He demanded everything 
essential to the personal and public liberty guaranteed by 
the Declaration of Independence. 

Undoubtedly the great majority of the people were 
against him, regarding him as a disturber of the public 
peace. But the result shows upon whom the gift of 
prophecy had descended. The parties for whom these 
concessions had been made were determined to accept 
nothing that did not recognize slavery as the law of the 
land, and this extreme demand being rejected, they 
seemed ready, and, indeed, determined, to destroy the 
Government itself. And thus, sir, when, at last, the long 
threatened assault on the part of the Southern States was 
made, the whole country had to recognize the fact that 
the illustrious Senator of Massachusetts had stated the 
only correct principle of action for the General Govern- 
ment in its dealings with the slave-power. And it was 
then conceded on all sides that compromise as a basis 
of settlement was impossible. It is upon this historical 
fact that his reputation must forever stand. It pro- 
claims him the foremost man of his time. For, though 
he had many able, patriotic, and eloquent coadjutors in 
defence of the principles of freedom, which ought to have 
been accepted as the landmark of the Nation, it is well 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 37 

known that from the earnestness of his nature, the inten- 
sity of his feelings on this question, he pronounced such 
eloquent invocations in behalf of liberty, such appeals to 
the sense of national justice, such stinging rebukes and 
scathing denunciations of his opponents, that they selected 
and marked him, the young giant of Massachusetts, as 
the man who must be overthrown if their cause was not 
to be destroyed. The deceased Senator in this conflict 
stood almost alone. Older Senators, who had been 
taught by experience how far in opposition to the pre- 
dominant policy they could safely go, had followed a 
more prudent course. They had even counselled the 
Massachusetts Senator that his sharp methods of contro- 
versy were impolitic and perhaps unsafe. But he did not 
desist. He returned denunciation for denunciation and 
scorn for scorn. Like Milton's angel, faithful among the 
faithless, — 

" From amidst them forth he passed 
Long way thro' hostile scorn, which he sustained 
Superior ; nor of violence feared aught ; 
And with retorted scorn his back he turned 
On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed." 

Thus, Mr. Sumner, in the Senate of the United States, 
endured for ten long years the hostility of those that 
opposed the principles of which he was the representative, 
and thus he turned his back upon them "with retorted 
scorn " till those great States suffered the swift destruc- 
tion to which they had been doomed. In this maimer, 
sir, he became the representative of his country, from 
his fidelity to its principles. He was entitled to the 
consideration and marked respect of the whole people, 
whether they had been enemies or his friends. As an 
orator, he had in his time few equals, certainly no supe- 
rior. It is unnecessary for us to speak of him in 
comparison with ancient orators. We know little about 



38 CHARLES SUMNER. 

them. We know of them only by tradition, and we 
know enough of tradition to doubt much, if not all, 
that is said in praise of them. But the early orators 
of our own country we know perfectly well, and how T - 
ever much we esteem them and approve their efforts, we 
must remember that the same orations which were then 
delivered with studied phrase, modulated voice and pre- 
arranged action, would not suit the people of our day. 
It is doubtful if the orations which thirty or forty } r ears 
since so entranced the people of the United States would 
be now appreciated as they were then. 

The world is too busy to listen to artistic and studied 
harangues. We want to come directly to the points at 
issue, and understand the reasons for and against them ; 
and, measured in this way, Mr. Sumner had no superior. 
He was not only an orator, an instructive speaker upon 
all great subjects which he was called upon to discuss, 
but he was a keen and able debater, which demands 
very different, if not higher powers. And, although 
debate involved those sharp thrusts and retorts which 
were offensive to him, yet, when necessary, he had as 
sharp and bitter a tongue as any man he encountered. 
I myself once heard a few words uttered by him 
in the Senate of the United States, in the midst of 
the personal assaults that were made upon him, that 
seemed to impregnate the very atmosphere of the hall 
in which he stood. Such was his character, such his 
power of language in debate. It has been said, here and 
elsewhere, that he was cold and distant. But this was 
not the character of his heart or nature. The man who 
in the service of the Government has to consider a 
hundred different subjects in a day, must dismiss them 
promptly, decidedly, but with kindness. 

It is quite competent for a man to say yes and no to 
everybody , and give the impression to the country, far 
and wide, that he is a man of feeling. But he is not a 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 39 

true man. The true man is he who considers everything 
presented to him, and speaks honestly and truthfully 
upon each question. And the deceased Senator never 
dealt otherwise with man or woman. Thus, when he 
was thought to be lofty and cold, it was because he 
was engaged upon those practical matters of business 
where it was impossible for him to delay or waste his 
time. But at the foundation of his being, in the depth 
of his soul, all his warm and strong personal friends say 
there was a never-failing well of generous and heart- 
felt sympathies. We can well believe that it was this 
generous and sympathetic nature which led him to sup- 
port the great cause to which he dedicated his life. 

My honored colleague of the city of Cambridge, my 
associate upon the committee, informs me, when, a few 
days ago, the Resolutions of the State of Massachusetts, 
rescinding the Resolution of condemnation that had been 
passed against him, were presented to him, he received 
them with equanimity ; that he spoke a few words to 
one or two gentlemen connected with the Government 
whom he knew, and then, overcome with emotion, wept 
as a child. That, sir, was the character of the Senator, 
when stripped of the husk, the rhinoceros hide, that 
every public man must sometimes put on to protect him 
from the assaults of friends as well as enemies. 

There is another consideration, more important in 
estimating the character of the Senator than those which 
have been suggested. He was a point of union among 
the people ; not a point of union for partisan success, 
but for necessary and novel combinations and the suc- 
cess of great principles. It was in this way he came 
to be a Senator of the United States. He did not seek 
the office. When he was chosen he deemed it proper 
to recognize his election by notifying the Legislature 
of his acceptance, and he then declared that while he 
accepted the office to which he had been elected, and 



40 CIIAELES SUMNER. 

returned his grateful thanks for the honor conferred 
upon him, he had not lifted his hand to obtain it. The 
young men of the Commonwealth met this young giant, 
as Frederika Bremer called him, soon after his return 
from Europe, where he had been honored by the friend- 
ship of its scholars and statesmen, and observing his 
interest in the philanthropic questions of the day, fol- 
lowing in his footsteps as he passed through the streets 
— a man of perfectly symmetrical form and vigorous 
and manly beauty — and feeling that there was for him 
a destiny in connection with the future of his country, 
made him their representative. 

There were plenty of men in the same organization 
in which he moved and with which he acted, that would 
have been capable of serving the State in that regard, 
but they had not the power of union ; they had not 
those qualities that drew men to him. Mr. Sumner 
became a Senator of the United States, after a desper- 
ate struggle here in the State of Massachusetts, which 
occupied the two houses to the exclusion of almost all 
other business for nearly four months, and which tested 
the sincerity and integrity of men more than any other 
question ever presented to the Legislature. Two or 
three hundred men stood up for him or against him, 
day and night, until he was triumphantly elected. It 
must have been believed that there was something' in 
his character to support or something in his principles 
to oppose, that was important to themselves or to the 
country. Then came another opportunity when he could 
unite men of different parties for the success of great 
principles. 

After some years' service, having spoken for the people 
of Massachusetts strongly and clearly, he was made the 
subject of a brutal and cowardly assault as he sat, 
pinioned, as it were, at his desk, and unable to meet 
either of the assailants who surrounded him. Men some- 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 41 

times are able to concentrate masses of men by mere 
accident as well as by force of intellect. No sooner 
was this assault upon the Senator of Massachusetts 
known, than the people of every loyal State, with one 
voice, avowed their determination to defend his position 
and his principles. The great revolution, began in 1856, 
and culminating finally in the war, and the incorporation 
for the first time of the principles of the Declaration 
of Independence into the text and body of the Consti- 
tution of the Republic, is due to the union formed by 
the people of the loyal States over his prostrate body 
in the Senate Chamber. And now, sir, that he is taken 
away, we feel that in the fulness of his time he had come 
to another point of union when he, if his life had been 
spared, would have led us to other and necessary changes 
in the policy and objects of the Government. This, 
sir, is what we lose. 

It is this, sir, that makes us pause and ask, not of 
man but of God, " What is your will and what is our 
duty?" The great man of whom we spoke the other 
day — I am not ashamed nor afraid to speak of Mr. Fill- 
more as a patriotic man — had finished his career. 
Other illustrious statesmen have passed away. They 
had fulfilled their mission; there was no further duty 
for them, and God, in his providence, took them to 
himself. But this man whom we mourn, who lies in 
the capitol at Washington, and over whom, perhaps at 
this moment, is pronounced the benediction of the people 
— this man had just commenced life. He had dismissed 
many of the personal considerations which had controlled 
him, and was ready for new fields of service, as essential 
to the prosperity of the black man, to whom he had 
dedicated his earlier life, as for that of his own class. 

The people of the country would have turned to him, 
not perhaps as a standard-bearer— there are always stand- 
ard-bearers enough — but as one who could have given 

6 



42 CHARLES SUMNER. 

counsel which the people of the North, South, East and 
Wesl would have gladly followed. Thus separated from 
all personal controversies and personal interests, the 
country would have accepted his judgment and followed 
his example, knowing well that when he stood alone, 
with scarcely a man to hack him, and with a whole 
country against him, he had judged justly and advised 
them wisely. It is for this, sir, that we should regret 
his loss. Where is the man to supply his place? Un- 
doubtedly it will hereafter be supplied. Men have 
been thus supplied heretofore and will be again. If he 
were with us there would be multitudes who would 
accept his counsels, assured of safety for the future. 
But our loss is his gain. It is not for the dead, but 
the living, that we mourn. He is at this hour, yes, 
this hour, the recipient of a purer liberty than any that 
entered into his conception, or that has ever been 
enjoyed by man. 

" There is yet a liberty, unsung 
By poets and by Senators unpraised, 
Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers 
Of Earth and Hell confederate take away ; 
A liberty which persecution, fraud, 
Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind ; 
Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more. 
'Tis liberty of heart, derived from Heaven, 
Bought with His blood, who gave it to mankind, 
And sealed with the same token. It is held 
By charter, and that charter sanctioned sure 
By the unimpeachable and awful oath 
And promise of a God. His other gifts 
All bear the royal stamp that speaks them his, 
And are august; but this transcends them all: 1 

And this is now the ineffable joy and the just reward 
of the illustrious dead Senator of Massachusetts. 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 43 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



House of Representatives, March 13, 1874. 

The Resolutions from the Joint Special Committee on the Message 
of the Governor were reported by Mr. Willakd P. Phillips of 
Salem, and were read by the Speaker. 

Mr. Phillips then addressed the House as follows : — 

Mr. Speaker : In rising to move the adoption of the 
Resolutions which have just been read from the chair, I 
shall utter but few words. 

It is true that Charles Sumner no longer lives. The 
great Senator we have loved so well has passed from 
earth. His life is ended ; his record is made up. It 
remains for us, the Legislature of the Commonwealth he 
has served so long and honored so much, to take such 
action as the sad occasion requires. 

For twenty-three years he has been our Senator. En- 
tering the Senate when comparatively unknown to the 
country, he has there earned a name which is eminent 
throughout the civilized world. He stood there but yes- 
terday, recognized everywhere as the great champion of 
freedom, the defender of justice, the advocate of equal 
rights. To-day there is a vacant place which can be filled 
by no living man. 

Chosen to his high office as an opponent of the then 
dominant slave power, he applied himself untiringly to 
the great duty he had undertaken— regardless alike of 
labor and of personal danger ; and while so performing 



44 CUAELES SUMNER. 

his duties in the Senate chamber, he suffered those 
injuries from which he never recovered. But he lived 
to see the slave power powerless, slavery itself destroyed, 
and four millions of slaves enfranchised. All this he 
labored for and did much to accomplish. 

But, sir, it is not only in the advocacy of great truths 
and of just causes that he has achieved fame. His pure 
and honest life, unsullied by any wrong act, was worthy 
of the man, an honor to the State and Country. In the 
midst of political contests, with corruption charged upon 
almost every public man, he was never charged with or 
suspected of any wrong-doing. 

The people of the Commonwealth have loved and hon- 
ored Mr. Sumner from his first entry into public life. 
Never, when his election has been in controversy, have 
they failed so to vote as to make his return absolutely 
certain ; but at the extra session of the Legislature held 
in November, 1872, a Resolution was adopted, perhaps 
hastily, which he considered a censure and a rebuke. To 
him it seemed undeserved. It affected his health and 
caused him many hours of suffering and pain. The next 
Legislature, already elected when the Resolution was 
adopted, refused to rescind it, and it remained unrepealed 
for more than a year. But when the people of the Com- 
monwealth could act, they elected the present Legislature, 
which has, without delay, annulled the resolution of 
censure, and sent to our Senators and Representatives in 
Washington copies of the rescinding Resolution, which 
had been read in both branches of Congress — in the 
Senate, most singularly, at the very last session of that 
body held before our Senator's death, and in his presence. 

Surely, sir, we may felicitate ourselves that we have 
done him justice, and that now no condemnation of him 
stands unrescinded upon the records of this Common- 
wealth. 

Sir, the great Senator, the honest man, the friend 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 45 

of the oppressed, the illustrious citizen, honored and 
respected everywhere, has gone. In his dying hours he 
was true to the cause to which he had devoted his life, 
and urged almost with his last breath that his civil rights 
bill should be taken care of. May we do what we can to 
aid in the accomplishment of this, his last wish, and may 
it be our endeavor to emulate his example of devotion to 
every duty, and thus to show that we have not forgotten 
his teaching. 

Mr. Speaker, I move that the Resolutions be adopted. 

Mr. Charles R. Codman of Boston next spoke as follows :— 

Mr. Speaker: He has read history to little purpose 
and with little thought, who has failed to perceive a divine 
law in human affairs. No great cause has ever triumphed, 
no great reform has ever been accomplished, no gigantic 
wrong has ever been redressed, without the personal 
agency of a great leader. To such men their fellow-men 
have always turned in seasons of peril, of doubt and of 
difficulty ; and when ill the fulness of time the hour has 
come for one of the great moral revolutions of the world, 
the hour has brought with it the man for the crisis. We 
read in the picturesque pages of our own historian, of 
the heroic struggles of the Dutch republicans, of their 
reverses, their sufferings and their final triumph; and the 
grand figure of William the Silent stands forth in bold 
relief as their leader, their guardian and their guide. We 
are told " that as long as he lived he was the guiding star 
of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little 
children cried in the streets." The name of Wilberforce 
is inseparably linked with that grandest act in English 
history, the emancipation of the slaves in the British 
colonies. This creat and earnest man seems to have been 
providentially raised to awaken and inform the people, 
and without him, humanly speaking, the great act of 



46 CHARLES SUMNER. 

justice would never have been performed. So, too, in 
our own revolutionary days, as we read the history of 
that time, it almost seems as if our independence could 
not have been achieved if we had had no Washington. 
And in the suppression of the great rebellion we are not 
too near those days of conflict and trial to fail to recog- 
nize that, in that crisis of our destinies, the wiser Will 
that governs human affairs gave us a heaven-born leader 
of men. In the providence of God there are no accidents, 
and it was something more potent than the chances of a 
political convention that gave us Abraham Lincoln for 
our President. 

He whom we mourn to-day was one of these providen- 
tial men. His was the allotted mission to rouse the 
conscience of the American people, and in season and out 
of season that resolute and unfaltering voice was heard, 
not so much pleading as demanding, ever urging, ever 
pointing the way. Xo rest for Soixer if a single step 
was gained. Others would fain pause, if only to take 
breath and note what had been done, but with restless 
energy he was always crying " Excelsior," counting noth- 
ing as done while anything remained to do, struggling, 
urging, exhorting, remonstrating, reproving, denounc- 
ing, never satisfied, never believing the work at an end, 
in the vanguard always, foremost for the restriction of 
slavery, foremost for emancipation, foremost for recon- 
ciliation. 

And now, Mr. Speaker, he is gone, and his great task 
is left well-nigh finished. As we cast our tributes upon 
his grave, we will not say that his end is untimely. He 
has done a great and noble work, and he falls at last in 
the full possession of his great mental powers, with his 
e3'c not dim nor his natural force abated, as the good 
soldier falls at his post with all his armor on. 

Mr. Speaker, I do not forget that it is my privilege to 
speak here to-day as one of the representatives of the 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 47 

city and of the ward in which he lived for so many years. 
Born almost under the shadow of this State House, bred 
in our public schools, he was always in heart and soul, as 
well as by birth, a Bostonian. With devoted friends 
throughout the whole civilized world who revered and 
admired him — for in all countries the lovers of art, of 
literature, of science and of liberty were his friends — it 
is here in Massachusetts, and chiefly in the neighbor- 
hood of Boston, that his death Mill be felt as a personal 
loss. We in Boston love to think of him as one of our 
boys, going to the Latin school and taking the Franklin 
medal, and giving an early promise of future greatness. 
We delight to remember that his home for many years, 
on the north side of Beacon Hill, was in the street next 
to that which contains the little colony of colored people. 
The great champion and advocate of their race was well 
placed in their neighborhood. Many a fugitive slave has 
found refuge and concealment in those lanes and alleys, 
and some are living there to-day ; and the devotion of all 
of them to Charles Sumner is equalled only by his loy- 
alty to them. Deep is their grief at his loss, and all their 
brethren arc mourners with them ; for nothing has ever 
shaken their faithful attachment. jS t o matter if the Sen- 
ator changed his party associations ; they well understood 
that he was always faithful to them. If they could not 
vote with him, they were always ready to vote for him. 
Some of them may have been ignorant, uneducated, 
simple, but their hearts always told them that their friend 
Avas true, and it was simply impossible to make them 
believe otherwise. 

But I should do feeble justice to a fragrant memory if 
I do not call to mind the essential purity of the personal 
character of Charles Sumner. Lofty as were his aims 
as a public man, stainless as was his integrity as a slates- 
man, his private and daily life was absolutely unspotted 
and blameless. The driven snow is not whiter than his 



48 CHARLES SUMXEK. 

reputation, and slander itself can find nothing to assail in 
any act of his. The frailties of many a great statesman, 
of many an honest public man, have marred his fame and 
diminished his usefulness, but no blot will stain the 
historic page that records the services and virtues of our 
great Senator. 

Mr. George J. Sanger of Danrers, then addressed the Chair and 
said : — 

Mr. Speakee : When the great and good die it is well 
to pause, and looking at what they have been, calling up 
their virtues, their achievements, their character, fix in 
our hearts the memory of these, and thus put ourselves to 
fresh obligation for their existence. And to-day it is well 
to call before us the great and noble life of Ciiaeles 
Sumnee — our fellow-citizen, reared amid the influences 
of our institutions, surrounded in youth and early man- 
hood with the moral atmosphere of our Commonwealth — 
cultured in our schools and university ; ours by official 
position, ours because he gave honor to the position of 
trust we had committed to his keeping. But he was not 
only a citizen of Massachusetts ; he was a citizen of our 
whole country. His was a wider field than a city or 
State. He loved the unit only as a part of the whole 
and for the good of the whole. And the love of his 
country was so true and wise, that it sought no good even 
for his country that came through wrong and injustice to 
any. His Avas a charity — in the true apostolic sense of 
the word — that never failed ; in which hope found its 
fruition and faith became sight. But he has gone from 
us ; for us no more to toil, for us no more to stand as the 
impersonation of justice, as the concentration of recti- 
tude. We can give his dust our tears, and with gentle 
hand commit it to the kindred earth. We can give him, 
as a State, our mournful farewell, and with all the lovers 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 49 

of good men pray that his mantle may fall on those who 
snail succeed linn. 

Great as a scholar, his admiration for the great never 
cooled his love for the lowly. Great as a statesman, his 
was the wisdom that saw that only « righteousness exalt- 
eth a nation." He was a man of "open vision." The 
past he made tributary to his judgment, and with rever- 
ence for what age had to teach, he combined the insist 
to sec the demand of the hour and the courage to go for- 
ward. He knew, what the world has been slow to & learn 
that m righteousness there is no failure. His day was a 
day of great responsibility. A wrong, colossal in propor- 
tions and foul in every attribute, held control of the Gov- 
ernment. Men had compromised ; but only evil thrives 
under such treatment. To him there came the clear sight 
that is the reward of unbending rectitude, and his voice 
gave no uncertain sound. Neither proffered honor nor 
intimidation could bind him; he had found the strait 
and narrow way, and to him it was life. He had faith ; 
not the faith of a dogma but of a principle ; it might cost 
life, fortune, position to the individual, but the end would 
be a full compensation. It was this that constituted his 
greatness. The past witnessed its worth, and he knew 
the future would testify of its success. But why should 
I spend time in the analysis of his character ; and surely 
I need say no word to touch your feelings. We say of 
the one we mourn, that he is dead. We speak of our 
loss. But nothing that is good ever dies, for it is ever- 
lasting. What he accomplished is secure. His pure life, 
his unbending rectitude, his complete fidelity— they are 
our possession. They belong to the world and can never 
pass away. They abide for us. They will live to teach 
the future. In the crisis-hour of the future, when men 
shall seek some light to guide, they will turn to this 
memory, and in it find counsel and support, What he 
has done, Ave will teach to our children, and our children's 
7 



50 CHARLES SUMNER. 

children shall live anew in the benefaction of this life. 
As the great river of our country has built up through 
the ages on either bank the broad acres on which city and 
village stand secure, so the great and good who leave us 
make possible the future. Then, in the assured heritage 
of his integrity, let us abide. In the light of his just 
and perfect life, let us live. 

Mr. Joshua B. Smith of Cambridge, then addressed the Speaker 
and was recognized. 

[Mr. Smith's close relations with Mr. Sumner for many years, his 
recent return from Washington where he had been as the bearer of 
the " Rescinding Resolutions," and where but a few hours before he 
had felt the grasp of his friend's hand ; the sacred memories and 
personal griefs, and the epiickened sense of the loss of a great and 
true friend, made too large a demand upon his control of voice to 
enable him to utter a word, and he presently resumed his seat. 
The hushed stillness of the House was profoundly impressive, 
making the " silence golden," and this was maintained for several 
minutes.*] 

Mr. Charles Hale of Boston then rose and said : — 

Mr. Speaker : Our friend from Cambridge has made 
the most eloquent speech that is possible. It is with 
reluctance that I intrude upon the silence. 

Mr. Hale continued : — 

It is peculiarly fitting that in this hall expression 
should be given to the grief which, at this moment, 
oppresses the public mind everywhere. Everywhere it 
is remembered that Mr. Sumner was, at the time of 
his decease, the "father" of the Senate of the United 
Slates; the oldest Senator by consecutive service, the 

* See page 57. 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 51 

most conspicuous member of that illustrious body, and 
that he served as Senator from Massachusetts for a 
longer period than any of his predecessors. The eulo- 
gists of public men, dying in posts of high station or in 
retirement after having held such posts, have generally 
been called to recount the many offices they have held ; 
to point out how they have risen — sometimes how rapidly 
they have risen — from one round of the political ladder to 
another ; how, having been found faithful in a few thing's 
they have been put over many things, and have held 
town, county and State offices, and then one and other 
position in the national councils. So, too, we have been 
asked to admire the honorable service of our statesmen 
in diverse positions of public trust ; in executive office or 
administrative positions of the State or Nation ; in service 
abroad or at home relating to the foreign relations of the 
country; sometimes, also, in military service, diversify- 
ing their labors in civil life. Mr. Sumnee's public life, 
not less illustrious, has none of these characteristics of 
variety. He entered the public service as a Senator in 
the Congress of the United States from the State of 
Massachusetts ; and in that place, without interruption of 
that service, he has died. From an early age he held a 
State commission as justice of the peace ; and he was a 
member of the Convention in 1853 for the revision of the 
State Constitution. With no other exceptions, I think, 
than these, he never held office by popular election, and 
he never held office by executive appointment. No man- 
date of commission summoned him into public life less 
distinguished than that of the Commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts, expressed by the voice of her Senate and House 
of Representatives in General Court assembled ; from the 
beginning to the end, no field of public service engaged 
his mighty powers less broad or less elevated than that of 
the Senate of the whole Union. 

This hall was the scene of that extraordinary summons 



52 CHARLES SUMNER. 

to exalted public position of one who had never placed 
himself among aspirants for office. Of the circumstances 
attending that summons nothing more need be said than 
that, to whatever criticism the} r may be obnoxious, no 
criticism can attach to Mr. Sumner's part in them ; or, 
rather, it is to be said that he had no part in them what- 
ever. Indeed, some of his supporters were disposed to 
make it a matter of complaint that during the memorable 
contest which introduced him to public life, not a word, 
a syllable, or even whisper, could be elicited from their 
candidate to aid in his election. Whatever combinations 
maj' have been made, he had no hand in them ; from all 
such things he held himself wholly aloof. He sometimes 
made addresses at public meetings and conventions, but 
he took no part in any legislative caucus — if any there 
were — in which his name was brought forward as a can- 
didate for office ; and after that first extraordinary elec- 
tion in 1851, so honorable to him, on each recurrence of 
the expiration of his six years' term, never was there 
occasion for a caucus; his reelection to the Senate in 
each case, generally almost unanimous, always without 
arrangement or management by anybody, certainly with- 
out a word from himself, occurred as regularly as the 
return of the seasons in their due order. Mr. Sumner 
had no occasion to lift a finger to help it ; he might with 
as much reason have beckoned the sun to rise. 

In viewing the public life of Mr. Sumner as Senator, 
it will perhaps be said that his character did not particu- 
larly fit him to lead in a parliamentary assembly ; or, in 
other words, that he was an orator rather than a debater. 
Such a criticism would reflect no discredit on the talents 
and attainments of Mr. Sumner, even if it had more solid 
foundation than can justly be claimed for it. The Senate 
of the United States, as he rightly considered, is not pre- 
cisely to be regarded as a mere assembly for the taking 
of votes and the passing of laws. Whether from the cir- 



LEGISLATIVE PKOCEEDIXGS. 53 

cumstance that thither arc sent the greatest men of the 
Nation, or that in the lower house, by reason of its num- 
bers, or of the immense accumulation of business there, 
or from some other cause, debate is rather stifled than 
allowed, the Senate has become to a much greater degree 
than the lower chamber in our National Government Avhat 
the House of Commons is under the British Constitution : 
the great forum of the nation for the general discussion 
of public affairs in all their bearings. But apart from 
this, I should not be disposed to admit the force of the 
criticism. The four great qualities of a model debater 
have been thus defined : A genial temper in debate ; 
courtesy and dignity of deportment ; profound knowl- 
edge of his subject ; a thorough preparation. Which of 
these did not Mr. Sumner possess? or, rather, which of 
them did he not possess in the most eminent degree? 
The fact is, Mr. Sumner knew parliamentary law as he 
knew all other law, from a profound study going back to 
first principles ; and he had ever in mind the rules based 
on the fundamental principle, that its purpose is to aid in 
giving faithful expression to the true opinion and will of 
the assembly ; and that in coming to that expression it is 
not so much the right of every member to be heard, as it 
is the duty of the assembly to collect every contribution 
to the common stock of knowledge or information which 
any member may be able to furnish, to aid the assembly 
in coming to the best result. For parliamentary law, 
considered as a series of artificial rules capable of use in 
cunning hands to pervert it from this, its true purpose, 
he had no taste. Sir, Mr. Sumner was an accomplished 
debater; a debater of the school which thinks of the 
soundness of its cause, the strength of reason and the 
force of argument ; not one who seeks to gain personal 
adherents for the measure he advocates, irrespective of 
its intrinsic merits, eager to carry it by some parlia- 
mentary artifice, by which an assembly may ingeniously 



54 CHARLES SUMNER. 

be forced, almost against its will, to accept worse for 
better. 

In the national loss, there is a mitigation in the value 
of the lesson that may be learned from it. As we gather 
round the grave of our illustrious Senator, may we all 
remember, especially may the young men now coming 
forward observe, that this great man, whom the whole 
world mourns, attained and held his high place, although 
he never packed a caucus, pulled a wire, or rolled a log; 
that he never sought office for favorites or personal adhe- 
rents ; was never concerned in any use of money for 
elections ; and let us resolve, each for himself, so far as 
in him lies, that as the assault on Mr. Sumner in 1856 
was the signal for a great national movement which 
removed from the Nation the ban of slavery, so may we 
hope that his death in 1874 may prove the signal for a 
great national movement that shall give to the country a 
pure political atmosphere such as he would have loved 
to breathe. 



Mr. John E. Fitzgerald of Boston then spoke as follows : — 

Mr. Speaker : We read in the history of the ancient 
Eepublic of Greece, that when the Spartan General 
Brasidas died in battle, the leading Spartans came to 
condole with his mother. Having asked those who visited 
her, if her son died as became a Spartan, they said, "He 
has left no man in Sparta like him." She answered, 
"Not so, my friends, Brasidas was an honorable man, but 
Sparta has many nobler and greater than he." And 
to-day, sir, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts mourns 
the loss of her greatest son, and from one end of the 
Eepublic to the other, the universal verdict comes to her, 
"He has left no man in the Republic like him." Would 
that Massachusetts could say, as did the Spartan mother 
of old, " Sumner was a great man but we have many 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 55 

nobler and greater than he." Twenty-three years ago 
Massachusetts clothed him with the official robe of Sen- 
ator; to-day that official mantle is laid at the feet of 
Massachusetts, pure and unsullied, without spot or 
blemish. What means, sir, this universal grief of the 
Nation for the death of one man ? Ah ! sir, it is a tribute 
of respect, not so much to the eloquence, scholarly attain- 
ments and statesmanship of Charles Sumner, as to his 
honesty and patriotism, equalling those of the better days 
of the ancient Republics. In high-toned patriotism, spot- 
less purity of character, and unswerving fidelity to duty, 
he had no superior in the Senate of the Nation. Threats 
could not deter him, nor (what is often more dangerous) 
the soft blandishments of friends mislead him from the 
path of rectitude. Hence, sir, the nation mourns his loss 
at a time when the example of his noble qualities is most 
needed ; at a time when statesmanship like bis is becoming 
more rare and less influential ; and the qualities that make 
up the wire-puller and trickster, more frequent and pow- 
erful in the politics of our Republic. And standing by 
his bier to-day, how best can we show our appreciation of 
the great virtues that have made Sumner's name famous 
forever more ! Unhappily we cannot say "Massachusetts 
has many nobler and greater than he," but we can select 
a son of Massachusetts possessed in some degree of the 
virtues which characterized him, of his honesty and inde- 
pendence at least. Doing this we honor ourselves and 
pay the highest tribute of respect to the life and services 
of Charles Sumner. 



Mr. Albert Palmer of Boston closed the addresses of the day in 
the following words : — 

Mr. Speaker : No power of thought or speech can 
measure or express the grief and mourning of this hour. 
No living tongue can now fully portray the nation's loss, 



56 CHARLES SUMXEE. 

or speak the fit consoling word. The lips that once could 
best do such service are now silent and sealed in death. 

Mr. Speaker, not only has America lost her greatest 
and best statesman, but the world has lost its ablest and 
most devoted friend. It was said of Webster, when he 
died, " The nation's heart beats heavily at the portals of 
the tomb." Sumner is dead, and the whole world's heart 
Avill beat heavily at the portals of his tomb. The Resolu- 
tions fitly enumerate the great and wonderful accomplish- 
ments of the peerless Senator — his scholarship, so varied 
and profound; his statesmanship, so wise, so impartial, 
so just ; his vast and unequalled knowledge of law, con- 
stitutional and international ; his mighty power of speech 
and argument, which made the world his audience-room 
and nations willing listeners ; his industry, so untiring 
and unremitting, as if he needed to supplement merely 
ordinary powers by extraordinary diligence. But above 
all these shining qualities and accomplishments of genius 
and intellect, or rather permeating all, was that unsullied 
virtue and perfect integrity which now in this sad hour 
command universal assent and homage. All men and 
parties hasten to say he was an honest man. His brilliant 
and unrivalled intellectual powers compel universal admi- 
ration. His moral integrity will inspire universal homage 
and love. His character was monumental ; pure, white 
and unstained, from pedestal to capstone. In council 
chambers and legislative halls of State and Nation he will 
be missed and mourned, but not less in every humble 
hamlet throughout the country. The full and almost 
broken heart of my friend, the member from Cambridge, 
too full for utterance, pays the best and most eloquent 
tribute to our loved and noble statesman. Let not our 
friend seek to hide the tears that close his utterance and 
forbid him speech : 

" 'Tis manliness to be heart-broken here, 
For the grave of earth's best nobleness is watered by the tear." 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 57 

We love to recall the dying words of our great men 
"Remember my civil rights bill," said the great Senator 
on his death-bed ; and shall we not consider those words 
as an inheritance? As we cherish and defend the civil 
and equal right of all, we shall honor and cherish the 
memory of Charles Sumner; and thus shall we best 
commend his great example to the world. 

The question was then put upon the Resolutions, and they were 
unanimously adopted, by a rising vote. 



At the earnest request of the Committee entrusted with the duty 
of preparing this volume for the press, Mr. J. B. Smith of Cambridge 
has written out the remarks which he intended to have made in the 
House of Representatives, when he addressed the Speaker as de- 
scribed above, at page 50. They are as follows :— 

Mr. Speaker: Thirty-five years have passed since 
Colonel Eobert G. Shaw was a babe in his cradle. On 
an occasion that I well remember, Charles Sumner was 
a guest at his father's table, and I was a servant stand- 
ing behind his chair. The question of slavery, then the 
general topic of conversation, was under discussion. 
One of the guests gave expression to the most bitter 
feeling I ever heard, saying that "the Abolitionists, with 
their negro friends, ought to be hanged." But Mr. and 
Mrs. Shaw, the father and mother of the infant, spoke 
strongly in favor of justice and freedom. The gentleman 
who had been speaking so bitterly asked Mr. Sumner 
what he thought of the negro question. Pointing to me 
he replied, "Would you have that man a slave?" And 
that expression, with other words then spoken, cost him 
his social position for years in Boston. Slavery had 
struck its roots wide and deep ; but for me the star of 



58 CHARLES SUMNER. 

justice rose in that hour, and I saw it shining, for the 
first time, through the dark clouds of prejudice that 
surrounded me. 

A few years after that I was with that child on Boston 
Common. As we were sitting there, I noticed that he 
looked intently at me, and presently he said, " Smith, 
what makes your hands black?" "Why, my boy, God 
made then so," I replied. "Well," said he, "if God 
made them so, why do people find fault with it?" 
"Because they are bad," I answered. He gazed at me 
a few moments without speaking, and then said, "Smith, 
some day I'll tight for you." 

When he was only twenty-five years of age this child 
was made Colonel of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Vol- 
unteers, the first regiment of colored soldiers recruited 
in this State : and then, as Colonel Shaw, led the colored 
troops at Fort Wagner, and there gave his life for his 
country and for that justice and freedom that had been a 
part of his early training. 

Thhty-two years after the noble expressions referred to, 
of Mr. Sumner, I was a guest at his table in Washing- 
ton. While we were seated there, a party of Southern- 
ers, from Georgia, called upon Mr. Sumner to secure 
his influence in what he considered would be unjust legis- 
lation. The great Senator turned again, pointing to me, 
and said : " There is my friend ; my equal at home and 
your equal anywhere ; and when you are ready to make 
eternal justice law, then call upon me and I will help 
you, and not before." 

Mr. Speaker, I have lived out two generations, and 
have tasted the bitter fruit of the seed planted by our 
fathers eighty years ago. I have had the doors of the 
Church and of the State House shut in my face ; but I 
have lived to enjoy the blessings of liberty, and to-day I 
stand the peer of every man in this House, and this, as 
I believe, through the life and labor of Charles Sumnek. 



LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 59 

What a change has taken place within the forty years 
of my remembrance ! I wish I could picture it. In those 
days I was a servant in a family travelling through the 
South. They stopped in Washington, and I there saw, 
for the first time, men, women and children sold on the 
auction-block as cattle are sold. No regard was paid to 
age, sex or relationship. Husband and wife, mother and 
child, were parted to meet no more. At that time, if a 
black man's child, or dying wife, cried for water after ten 
o'clock at night, he dared not go into the streets to get 
it, for fear of arrest and the watch-house. And if the 
master did not pay the fine the next morning, thirty-nine 
lashes on the bare back was the black man's penalty. In 
those days I would have given a kingdom to have been a 
do" - , with a collar on my neck with the owner's name 
upon it, for that would have protected me. 

The family to which I have referred was invited into 
the country to dine, and I stood to wait upon them. 
After dinner I heard the sound of the lash, and a voice 
crying, "O God, have mercy ! " I stepped out into the 
garden, and, looking about me, saw a poor girl with the 
blood running down her neck, with her eyes fixed on 
the shining clouds towards the setting sun, and saying, 
"O Jesus, I will soon be with thee, and then my soul 
will shine as those clouds, and I will be thy child." It 
was the first prayer I had ever heard, and there I swore 
eternal hatred to slavery. 

Forty years after that I went again to Washington. 
Slavery had disappeared. The whipping-post and auc- 
tion-block were gone. The star that I saw rise was now 
at its meridian. It shone full in my face. I was in a 
new world. I was as free as air. I went as any gentle- 
man might go. I walked to the cars, I went to Arling- 
ton, and heard no word of insult. I had every attention 
paid to me as a gentleman, and should not have known 
that I was a black man if I had not looked in the mirror. 



60 CHARLES SUMNEE. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, Charles Sumner did it. Five- 
and-twenty years ago the Anti-Slavery sentiment of New 
England fixed upon Sumner as the man to go to Wash- 
ington to strike the first blow. You speak of Sherman's 
march from Atlanta to the sea as a great victory. But 
that was nothing compared to the success of Sumner. 
Sherman had the Nation at his back. Sumner had 
simple justice. Sherman had a hundred thousand men. 
Sumner fought single-handed and alone. Sherman had 
the wealth of the Nation laid at his feet, and Sumner 
had only the prayers of the poor. 

Mr. Speaker, I stand here amazed. One week ago 
this day I placed in the hands of our great Senator the 
Rescinding Resolutions of this Legislature. As he read 
them he turned his head and wept as I never saw man 
weep before. He then said, "I knew Massachusetts 
would" do me justice." 

As I stood here I could not but think of that passage 
of Scripture which says, "Jesus wept." Not for himself, 
but for a poor, unbelieving world. Sumner wept ; not for 
himself, but for the State he loved and served so well. 

Sir, I do not forget in this hour that, little more than 
one year ago, the Legislature censured him. To-day 
this House stands ready to lay the wealth of the State 
at his feet to honor his great name. 

And now, sir, that great life has ended here. That 
star has set. And while it rests on the banks of eternity, 
awaiting its assignment amid the bright and shining lights 
in the canopy of heaven, its rays still lingering on the 
clouds and the mountain-tops, O God, I pray thee, give 
us one to take hold where he let sto — one who can lio-hten 
us through this dark and unkind world, until thy glory 
shall shine on a regenerated land. Then justice, honesty 
and peace shall rule the Nation. 



LEGISLATIVE ORDERS. 61 



COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



In Senate, March 13, 1874. 

Ordered, That a committee of three on the part of 
the Senate, and five on the part of the House, be 
appointed to meet the Congressional Committee having 
in charge the remains of Senator Sumner, at the bound* 
ary line of the Commonwealth. 

And Messrs. Hayes, Jacobs and Wardwell, were 
appointed the committee on the part of the Senate. 

Sent clown for concurrence. 

S. N. GIFFORD, Clerk. 



House of Representatives, March 13, 1874. 

Concurred : And Messrs. Codman of Boston, Adams of 
Quincy, Noble of Westfield, Blunt of Haverhill, and 
Cummings of Woburn, are joined. 

GEO. A. MARDEN, Clerk. 



62 CHARLES SUMNER. 



COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



In Senate, March 13, 1874. 

Ordered, That a committee of three on the part of 
the Senate, and five on the part of the House, be 
appointed to make all necessary arrangements for the 
reception of the body of Senator Sumner and for the 
funeral obsequies in this Commonwealth, which shall be 
held in King's Chapel on Monday, the 16th inst., at 3 
o'clock, P. M. 

And that the committee be authorized to provide 
appropriate drapery for the Chapel on the occasion ; and 
also to extend an invitation to the City Government of 
Boston to be present. 

And Messrs. Stickxey, Bacon and Merrill, were 
appointed the committee on the part of the Senate. 

Sent down for concurrence. 

S. XT. GIFFORD, Clerk. 



House of Representatives, March 13, 1874. 

Concurred : And Messrs. Perkins of Boston, Buffum 
of Lynn, Slade of Somerset, Crocker of Boston, and 
Estabrook of Worcester, are joined. 

GEO. A. MARDEN", Clerk. 



LEGISLATIVE ORDERS. 63 



COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



In Senate, March 13, 1874. 

Ordered, That a Committee of two on the part of 
the Senate, and three on the part of the House, be 
appointed to take suitable measures to provide for the 
delivery of an Oration before the Executive and Legis- 
lative branches of this Commonwealth, upon the life, 
character and public services of Charles Sumner, by 
such person, and at such time and place, as may seem 
to them appropriate. 

Sent down for concurrence. 

S. N. GIFFORD, Clerk. 



House of Representatives, March 13, 1871. 

Concurred : And Messrs. Smith of Cambridge, Phil- 
lips of Salem, and Phillips of Springfield, are 
appointed the Committee on the part of the House. 

GEO. A. MARDEN, Clerk. 



In Senate, March 17, 1874. 

Messrs. Merrill and Verry are appointed on the 
part of the Senate. 

S. N. GIFFORD, Clerk. 



COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



By His Excellency WILLIAM B. WASHBURN, Governor 
A PROCLAMATION. 



Whereas, Three o'clock of Monday afternoon, six- 
teenth instant, has been determined upon as the hour 
for the funeral of Charles Sumner ; and 

Whereas, It is believed the people of the Common- 
wealth, without distinction of party, will desire to par- 
ticipate in this last tribute of respect and affection to the 
great Senator who served them so long and so well ; 

Therefore, I request the officials of cities and towns 
throughout the Commonwealth to make provision for 
solemnizing the hour named, by the tolling of bells, and 
such other services as they may deem appropriate to the 
occasion. 

Given at the Executive Department, Boston, under the seal 
of the Commonwealth, this fourteenth day of March, 
A. D. one thousand eight hundred and seventy-four. 

WILLIAM B. WASHBURN. 

By His Excellency the Governor : 

Oliver Warner, Secretary. 

God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 



THE OBSEQUIES. 



THE OBSEQUIES. 



The announcement in Washington that Charles 
Sumner was dead, fell like a pall upon the Capitol. 

In each Legislative Chamber there was the hush of 
death. 

In the Senate, all eyes were turned upon the vacant 
chair. 

The simple words of mourning, spoken by Senator 
Anthony when he announced the death of Mr. Sum- 
ner, had a touching significance rarely equalled even 
in that chamber. But more eloquent than these words 
of tenderness was this vacant chair — a silent witness of 
the great Senator's departure. It was draped in black 
— a mute emblem of the national grief— and upon the 
desk before it were the fresh flowers which loving 
hands had placed there in memoriam. 

The proceedings in both Houses on Thursday were 
brief, but the simple formalities of the passage of the 
Resolutions, and the appointment of the Committees to 
arrange for the funeral and to accompany the body to 
Massachusetts, were full of tenderness and solemnity. 

On Friday morning the remains of Mr. Sumner were 
placed in the Rotunda of the Capitol, where they lay in 
state until half-past twelve o'clock, the hour of the 
funeral services in the Senate Chamber. 



68 CHARLES SUMNER. 

At the close of these services the funeral procession 
moved to the station, and at three o'clock a special 
train started for New York, arriving at that city at 
midnight, where the Committee rested, and the honored 
remains were placed under guard. 

On Saturday morning, the fourteenth of March, the 
special cars, draped in mourning, moved out of the 
station on their way to Boston. 

The Joint Special Committee of the Legislature met 
the train at Springfield, where its Chairman (Hon. 
Francis B. Hayes) addressed the delegation in the fol- 
lowing words : 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Congressional Committee : 

The Legislature of Massachusetts has charged us with the 
duty of waiting upon }*ou and receiving the sacred remains 
of our beloved Senator. With the remains, permit us to con- 
duct you and the members of the Massachusetts delegation 
in Congress, as honored guests of the State, to its capital, 
when it shall please you to continue your journey. 

An appropriate reply to this greeting was made by 
Senator Anthony, in behalf of the delegation. 

At every station a concourse of people received, with 
tolling bells, with craped and drooping flags, and with 
uncovered heads, the sacred dust of the man whom they 
loved and reverenced. Tenderly the great heart of Mas- 
sachusetts beat, as she wept for her honored son. It 
seemed, at the moment, as if no tribute could express his 
high service ; no loyalty or reverence his great fidelity. 
But the quickened sensibilities, the tenderest emotions, 
and even the tears of a great people were freely given. 



THE OBSEQUIES. 69 

At seven o'clock, on Saturday evening, the booming 
guns announced to Boston the arrival of the funeral 
train. For hours, awaiting patiently its approach, 
uncounted thousands, of every class, had thronged the 
avenues leading to the station. 

The spontaneous impulse to do honor to the great soul 
that would no longer stand in the flesh, and move as 
aforetime with a presence so majestic in our streets, 
was as remarkable as it was significant. 

The great meeting of the citizens of Boston, in 
Faneuil Hall, but a few hours before, had struck the 
key-note of the day. The student left his book, the 
clerk his desk, the artisan his tool, and the laborer his 
spade. The inspiration of the occasion, the touched and 
quickened sensibilities, intensified by the commingling 
of thousands of men with a common purpose, seemed 
to charge the city with an unusual emotion. 

As the shades of evening fell upon the multitudes 
thronging the streets, few can forget the reverent hush 
which had settled upon them, or the expression in 
every face, of the solemn purpose that had drawn and 
held them waiting there. 

The Legislative Committee having in charge the 
reception of the body of the Senator, was in attend- 
ance at the station. A procession was formed in silence, 
and moved to the State House, in the gloom of 
approaching night, through streets lined with people 
standing uncovered in honor of their dead. 

In this great demonstration- of respect, it seemed as 
if strong men bowed themselves. The doors were shut 
in the streets and the windows were darkened, because 



70 CHARLES SUMNER. 

a great "man g;oeth to his long- home, and the mourners 
go about the streets." A silver cord had indeed been 
loosed, and a golden bowl had been broken ; the dust 
was to return to the earth as it was, as the spirit had 
returned to God who gave it. But the mourning of 
the people was not for him ; it was for themselves and 
for their children. 

A vast concourse of people were at the State House 
waiting the funeral procession. The coffin was borne 
slowly up into the Doric Hall and placed upon the 
catafalque. 

Here the Governor of the State, the members of his 
Council and Staff, and the Legislative Committees, were 
in attendance to receive the Committee of the United 
States Senate, and the members of the Massachusetts 
Delegation in Congress by whom they were accompanied. 

Colonel Stoker then introduced Senator Anthony, 
Chairman of the Committee of Senators, who said : — 

May it please Your Excellency : 

"We are commanded by the Senate to render back to 3-011 your 
illustrious dead. Nearly a quarter of a century ago, you dedi- 
cated to the public service a man who was even then greatly 
distinguished. He remained in it, quickening its patriotism, 
informing its counsels and leading in its deliberations, until, 
having survived in continuous service all his original associates, 
he has closed his earthly career. With reverent hands, we 
bring to you his mortal part, that it may be committed to the 
soil of the renowned Commonwealth that gave him birth. Take 
it ; it is yours. The part which we do not return to 3-011 is not 
wholly yours to receive, nor altogether ours to give. It belongs 
to the countiy, to freedom, to civilization, to humanity. We 



THE OBSEQUIES. 71 

come to you with the emblems of mourning which faintly typify 
the sorrow that dwells in the breasts which the}' cover. So 
much we must concede to the infirmity of human nature. But 
in the view of reason and philosoplry, is it not rather a matter 
of high exultation that a life so pure in its personal qualities, 
so lofty in its public aims, so fortunate in the fruition of noble 
effort, has closed safeby, without a stain, before age had impaired 
its intellectual vigor, before time had dimmed the lustre of its 
genius ! 

May it please Your Excellency : Our mission is completed. 
We commit to you the body of Charles Sumner. His undying 
fame the Muse of Histor} r has already taken into her keeping. 



Governor Washburn advancing towards the Senate 
Committee, replied : — 

Gentlemen : It becomes my painful duty to receive from 
your hands all that remains of our great Senator. I wish to 
thank you, in the name of the State, for your labor of love, in 
thus transmitting to our keeping this precious dust. AVe 
receive it at your hands with the assurance that it shall be 
guarded most tenderly, and the spot to which it shall be borne 
for its final resting-place, being baptized by such precious blood, 
shall ever hereafter be looked upon as consecrated ground. In 
the meantime, I commit it to the careful keeping of the Com- 
mittee of our Legislature, selected for this special purpose. 
Permit me now to welcome you to the hospitalities of our State, 
and to assure you that no efforts of ours shall be wanting to 
make your brief stay with us as agreeable as possible under the 
circumstances which have brought you hither. 

Thanking you again for your marked sympathy in this hour 
of sore trial, I bid you all a hearty welcome, with the assurance 
that your tender regards on this occasion shall never be for- 
gotten. 

Doric Hall, with the sacred emblems of battle enshrined 
in its alcoves, was draped in mourning in honor of the 



72 CHABLES SUMNEB. 

illustrious dead. The affecting historical associations 
which cluster about this beautiful hall made it the spot of 
all others in the Commonwealth, where, for a brief day, 
the worn and weary body of the dead Senator should 
rest. Here, under the Dome of the Capitol, he was laid, 
canopied with flowers, and guarded with tender vigilance 
by a company of that race to whose protection he had 
consecrated his life.* 

Sunday morning dawned. The draperies of black and 
white, festooned from the cornices and arching door- 
ways, made of the silent corridors a mausoleum. The 
catafalque was covered with flowers. Over the coffin, 
depending from the ceiling, was a wreath of smilax, from 
which radiated a drooping vine, encircling the columns to 
their base. From this wreath was suspended a crown of 
flowers, and from this, as if in flight, a white dove, and 
from its beak an olive-branch ; while rare flowers, in 
masses of color, in every graceful form of cross and 
wreath and trailing vine, gave fragrance and beauty to 
the silent hall. 

The public demonstration during the day in the streets 
leading to the State House was such as had never before 
been witnessed on any similar occasion in Boston. Mul- 
titudes of people, who could not be numbered, crowded 
the avenues of Beacon Hill, and from early morning 
until dusk of evening, the tireless stream of humanity 
passed through the open doors where the great Senator 
lay in state. 

Silently, decorously, sadly, the vast multitude availed 
themselves of this privilege. The old and the young, the 

* " Shaw Guards," Company A, 2d Battalion Infantry, Mass. V. M. 



THE OBSEQUIES. 73 

rich and the poor, the white and the colored, of every 
occupation and every class, from the city and from the 
country, those in high station and those in humhle life, 
little children and gray-haired dames, all moved with one 
impulse to pay a last tribute to Chaules Sumner. 

And who shall interpret the emotions of those who 
were privileged to stand there ! The history of a genera- 
tion of the national life, its days of darkness and of woe, 
its throes of agony and its majestic triumphs, all this Mas 
epitomized as men looked on the silent dust of the man 
who for a quarter of a century had stood in the advance 
in the great struggle for freedom. 

The silence was eloquent, and in that silence these 
sacred memories and the vision of his spotless career 
were renewed. 

Monday, the sixteenth of March, was the funeral day. 
As its hours passed, the vast crowds which assembled 
before the State House and streamed through its open 
corridors, repeated the scenes of the day before. From 
every part of New England tens of thousands had come 
to join the funeral. All business was suspended. On 
the main avenues the stores were draped in mourning. 
Flowers and vines wreathing the portraits of the Senator, 
flags festooned and craped, with other memorial emblems, 
were seen everywhere. The city was tilled with moving 
throngs, whose ilices expressed the universal sorrow. 
There was a silent going about the streets, an unaccus- 
tomed hush in the marts of trade, which was in keep- 
ing with the solemn purpose of the day. 

The tender interest that held the great multitudes for 
hours in the streets surrounding the Capitol, the gentle- 
10 



74 CHARLES SUMXEE. 

ness upon every face, the emotion in every heart, the 
kindliness and courtesy apparent even in the densest 
crowds, was a tribute in itself both affecting and sig- 
nificant. 

The Senators and Representatives met in their respec- 
tive Halls, and, at two o'clock, both branches assembled 
in the lower corridors of the East Wing, while the 
Executive Departments and distinguished delegations 
gathered in the West corridors of the Capitol. 

At half-past two o'clock the coffin was borne from 
the State House, the solemn notes of the Dead March 
awakening a response in ten thousand hearts. The pro- 
cession was formed and moved with no audible sound, 
save the measured tramp of feet and the mournful 
strains of the band, amid thousands of uncovered spec- 
tators, who filled the sidewalks, and the doors and 
windows of every house, through Beacon Street to King's 
Chapel, where the services were held. 

This venerable church, with its interesting historical 
associations, was the family place of worship of Mr. 
Sumner. The beautiful interior, its quaint and massive 
architecture, its richly painted windows, its mural tab- 
lets and monuments, were enriched by every delicate 
device of flower, fern and trailing vine, to add bright- 
ness and beauty to the solemnities. 

The stained windows were crowned and festooned 
with smilax, which drooped like a delicate veil over 
the tablets of the commandments. The reading-desk, 
pulpit and galleries were appropriately draped in black 
and white, with threads of smilax in festoons, with 
pinks and rosebuds intertwined. 



THE OBSEQUIES. 75 

The pew formerly occupied by Mr. Sumner, was 
marked by a profusion of flowers. A loving and sym- 
pathetic taste had employed itself in the final arrange- 
ment of the beautiful offerings which had been placed 
within the chancel in affectionate remembrance. 

For a brief hour of prayer, and choral song, and 
dirge, and benediction, King's Chapel was thus made 
ready to receive the mortal part of the Senator on its 
way to burial. 

Profound silence reigned within the church ; even in 
the streets surrounding it the din and hum of traffic 
were hushed. The distant strains of the funeral dirffe 
were heard softly rising upon the air, and then, in 
clearer notes, the measured cadences of the Dead 
March resounded, as the cortege approached the open 
doors, deepening the solemn impressions of the hour. 

At fifteen minutes before three o'clock the procession 
entered the church. His Excellency the Governor, and 
Staff, the members of the Executive Council, Heads of 
Departments and Senate, members of the Society of the 
Cincinnati and Board of Trade, were assigned seats on 
the left of the broad aisle. The pews on the left side 
aisle were occupied by the members of the House of 
Representatives. The pews at the head, on the right 
of the broad aisle,, were allotted to intimate personal 
friends of the deceased Senator, the Vice-President of 
the United States, the Massachusetts delegation in Con- 
gress, the Congressional Committee, and the Chaplain 
and Ser<reant-at-Arms of the United States Senate . 
Behind them were seated the Judges of the Supreme 
Court, Judges of the United States Courts, and Officers 



76 CHARLES SUMNER. 

of the Army and Navy, Corporation and Overseers of 
Harvard College, members of the Class of 1830, the 
Reverend Clergy, Massachusetts Historical Society, and 
members of the New York Chamber of Commerce. 
The pall-bearers were seated at the head of the right 
side aisle, and below them the members of the City 
Government. Places were also assigned to the Trustees 
of the Public Library and Art Museum, and the Cam- 
bridge City Government. 

It was with stately simplicity that the Commonwealth 
moved to the burial of her lamented son. 

THE BURIAL SERVICE. 

The Burial Service was according to the King's 
Chapel Liturgy, with special additions. 

Rev. Henry W. Foote officiated. He met the coffin 
at the door of the church and read the sentences : — 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord; he 
who believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live ; 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. 

" I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand 
at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin 
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. 

" We brought nothing into this world and it is certain 
that we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the 
Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord." 

An organ prelude followed ; then Neumarck's Choral : 

" To thee, O Lord, I yield my spirit, 

Who break'st in love this mortal chain ; 
My life I but from thee inherit, 

And death becomes my chiefest gain; 
In thee I live, in thee I die 
Content, for thou art ever nio-h." 



THE OBSEQUIES. 77 

Then followed the Burial Psalms, the choir singing 
the responses : — 

Lord, let me know my end and the number of my days • 
that I maj- know how frail I am. 

Behold, thou hast made my days as it were a span long, and 
mine age is even as nothing in respect to thee ; and verily every 
man living is altogether vanity. 

For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself 
in vain ; he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather 
them. 

And now, Lord, what is my hope? Truly my hope is even in 
thee. 

I became dumb and opened not my mouth ; for it was thy 
doing. 

But take thy plague away from me ; for I am consumed by 
the blow of thy heavy hand. 

When thou with rebukes clost chasten man for sin, thou 
makest his beauty to consume away, like as it were a moth 
fretting a garment ; surely every man is vanity. 

Hear my prayer, Lord, and with thine ears consider my 
calling ; hold not thy peace at my tears. 

For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my 
fathers were. 

Oh spare me a little, that I may recover my strength, before 
I go hence, and be no more seen. 

Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to 
another. 

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou haclst 
formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to ever- 
lasting, thou art God. 

Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye 
children of men. 

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday, when 
it is past, or a watch in the night. 

Thou earnest them away as with a flood ; they are even as a 
sleep ; and fade away suddenly like the grass. 



78 CHARLES SUMNER. 

In the morning it is green, and groweth up ; but in the 
evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered. 

The days of our age are threescore } r ears and ten ; and 
though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years, yet 
is their strength then but labor and sorrow ; so soon passeth it 
away, and we are gone. 

So teach us to number our days that we ma}- apply our hearts 
unto wisdom. Amen. 

Then followed these Selections from Scripture : — 

The burden of the valley of vision. What aileth thee now, 
that thou art wholly gone up to the housetops? Thou that art 
full of stirs, a tumultuous city. 

Help, Lord ! for the faithful fail from among the children of 
men. 

All ye that are about him, bemoan him ; all ye that know his 
name, sa} r , how is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod ! 

To the counsellors of peace is joy. But His word was in 
mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was 
weary with forbearing, and I would not stay. For I heard the 
defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, sa}' the}', and 
we will report it. All my familiars watch for my halting, 
saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail 
against him, and we shall take our revenge on him. . . . 
But, O Lord of hosts, that triest the righteous, . . . unto 
thee have I opened my cause. 

Righteousness exalteth a nation ; but sin is a reproach to any 
people. 

Speak unto the children of Israel . . . and proclaim 
liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. 
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of 
wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed 
go free, and that ye break every yoke? As free, and not using 
your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of 
God. 

The people that sat in darkness have seen a great light ; they 
that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath 
the light shined. 



THE OBSEQUIES. 79 

When I went out to the gate through the city the young men 
saw me, and hid themselves, and the aged arose and stood up. 
The princes refrained talking, and laid their hands on their 
mouth. Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the father- 
less, and him that had none to help him, the blessing of him 
that was ready to perish came upon me. I put on righteousness 
and it clothed me. I was a father to the poor ; and the cause 
which I knew not I searched out. My glory was fresh in me ; 
and my bow was renewed in my hand. Unto me men gave ear, 
and waited, and kept silence at my counsel. 

Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity. I 
have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in Avith dis- 
semblers. I have hated the congregation of evil doers ; and 
will not sit with the wicked. I will wash mine hands in inno- 
cency. Gather not 1113- soul with sinners, nor my life with 
bloody men ; in whose hands is mischief, and their right hand 
is full of bribes. But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity ; 
redeem me and be merciful unto me. 

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall 
stand in his holy place ? He that hath clean hands and a pure 
heart ; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor sworn 
deceitfulby. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and 
righteousness from the God of his salvation. 

And now, behold, I am gray-headed . . . and I have 
walked before 3-011 from nry childhood unto this day. Behold, 
here I am ; witness against me before the Lord, and before his 
anointed ; whose ox have I taken ? or whose ass have I taken ? or 
whom have I defrauded ? or whom have I oppressed ? or of whose 
hand have I received aii3 r bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? 

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and 
there shall no torment touch them. There the wicked cease 
from troubling and the weary are at rest. 

For the memorial of virtue is immortal ; because it is known 
with God and with men. When it is present men take example 
at it, and when it is gone the3' desire it ; it weareth a crown 
and triumpheth forever, having gotten the victory, striving for 
undeflleil rewards. 

Their bodies are buried in peace ; but their name liveth for- 
evermore. 



80 CHARLES SUMNER. 

He judged the cause of the poor and needy ; then it was 
well with him. Was not this to know me ? saith the Lord. 

What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? 
That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people 
shall trust in it. 

He that had received five talents came and brought other five 
talents, saying, Lord, thou deliverest unto me five talents ; 
behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord 
said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; thou 
hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over 
man}- things ; enter thou into the joy of tlry lord. 

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are 
of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
praise, think on these things. 

Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits 
of those who slept. For since by man came death, by man 
came also the resurrection of the dead. 

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
alive. 

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, 
and another glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from 
another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. 
It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown 
in dishonor, it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is 
raised in power ; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spir- 
itual body. 

Wow, this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit 
the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorrup- 
tion. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible 
shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put 
on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is 
written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is 
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death 
is sin, and the strength of sin is the law ; but thanks be to 
God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 



THE OBSEQUIES. §1 

The following Anthem was then suns*: — 

" Happy mid blessed are they who have endured! For 
though the body dies, the soul shall live forever." 

At the close of the Anthem the Burial Service pro- 
ceeded : — 

Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, 
and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a 
flower ; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in 
one stay. 

In the midst of life we are in death ; of whom may we seek 
for succor, but of thee, Lord, who for our sins art justly dis- 
pleased ? 

Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, holy 
and most merciful Father, deliver us uot unto the bitter pains 
of eternal death ! 

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts ; shut not thy 
merciful ears to our prayers ; but spare us, Lord most holy, O 
God most mighty, O holy and merciful Father, thou most worthy 
Judge Eternal, suffer us not at our last hour, for any pains of 
death, to fall from thee. 

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto 
himself the soul of our brother, here departed, we therefore 
commit his body to the ground ; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, 
dust to dust ; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to 
eternal life, through our Lord Jesus' Christ, when the earth and 
the sea shall give up their dead, and the corruptible bodies of 
those who sleep in Jesus shall be changed and made like anto 
his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he 
is able to subdue all things to himself. 

Then the following Choral by Gastorius was sung : — 

" Leave God to order all thy ways, 
And hope in him, whate'er betide ; 
Thou'lt lind him in the evil days 
Thy all-sufficient strength and guide. 
Who trusts in God's unchanging love 
Builds on the rock that nought can move 

11 



82 CHARLES SUMNER. 

" He knows when joyful hours are best, 
He sends them as he sees it meet ; 
When thou hast borne the fiery test, 
And art made free from all deceit, 
lie comes to thee all unaware, 
And makes thee own his loving care. 

" Sing, pray, and swerve not from his ways, 
But do thine own part faithfully, 
Trust his rich promises of grace, 
So shall they be fulfilled in thee ; 
God never yet forsook at need 
The soul that trusted him indeed." 



Then followed the Collect and the special Prayer : — 

Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of those who 
depart hence in the Lord ; and with whom the souls of the 
faithful, after the}' are delivered from the burthen of the flesh, 
are in joy and felicit}-, we give thee hearty thanks for the good 
examples of all those thy servants who, having finished their 
course in faith, do now rest from their labors. And we beseech 
thee that we, with all those who are departed in the true faith 
of tlry holy name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss 
in thy heavenby and everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 

Almighty and ever-living God, we fly to thee as our eternal 
refuge ; we rest ourselves upon thee, the Rock of Ages. 
Blessed be thy holy name for the assurance of eternal life which 
thou hast given us by thy beloved Son ; blessed be thy holy 
name for the faith which we cherish that this corruptible shall 
put on incorruption, and this mortal, immortalit} 7 . 

Let this immortal hope and the comforts of thy gracious 
Spirit sustain in this their bereavement the kindred and friends 
of our departed brother, those who are near and those who are 
far away. May the sorrow of the land bear up their hearts 
with precious consolations, and the land's sorrow be full of 
consecration for this great people. 

Bless our beloved country, and make its rulers to rule over us 



THE OBSEQUIES. 83 

for good. Teach its senators wisdom, and give to all its people 
a spirit of purer patriotism, inspired by thy faith and fear. 
May we trust not in any arm of flesh, but in the living God. 
Raise up wise and faithful men to guide us in the place of thy 
servant whom thou hast called to thy nearer service from the 
single-hearted and loyal discharge of his great office; and, () 
God, teach us in our great loss the full lessons of his eminent 
and faithful life, that our gratitude may be attested by our dedi- 
cation of ourselves to thy truth and thy law. 

In this communit} r , whose son he was, we thank thee for every 
great gift in him, of example in constancy and courage for the 
right, and scorn of all that was mean and low, and incorruptible 
integrity, — for his pleading the cause of the down-trodden and 
his hearing the sighing of the sorrowful, his zeal for justice and 
truth, for every wise word and brave and honest deed. And 
chiefly do we thank thee for the lofty purpose which inspired his 
service of his country, to give to her the best he had to give. 
Sanctif}" these great memories to us, and make them fruitful in 
high thinking, and faithful living, to the people of this land. 

Visit this mourning Commonwealth, whose heart is melted in 
a common sorrow, with thy Spirit of grace, to renew in us the 
best example of loyalty to truth and duty and thee. Purge us 
from all self-seeking counsels. Teach us to honor onby that 
which is worth}' of honor, and to trust only them who put their 
trust in thee. 

Be thou, God, our refuge and our consolation and our sure 
trust. The more we are brought to perceive that things seen 
are temporal, so much the more may we find that the things 
which are unseen are eternal; that thou art faithful, and that 
Christ is worthy, and that heaven and not earth is our home. 
May we embrace thy promises and be thankful ; may we know 
that thou art God, and be still. And grant, we beseech thee, O 
Holy Father and Eternal Judge, that we may all live mindful of 
our duty and our trust, and waiting on thy will ; that, when we 
have served thee in our generations, we may be gathered unto 
our fathers, having the testimony of a good conscience, and in 
the hope that neither death nor life, nor things present, nor 
things to come, will be able to separate us from the love of 
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. 



8i CHAELES SUMNER. 

The following hymn by Montgomery was then sung by 
the congregation, — 

" Servant of God, well done ! 
Rest from thy loved employ ; 
The battle fought, the victory won, 
Enter thy Master's joy. 

" The voice at midnight came, 
He started up to hear ; 
A mortal arrow pierced his frame, — 
He fell, but felt no fear. 

" Tranquil amidst alarms, 
It found him on the field, 
A veteran, slumbering on his arms, 
Beneath his red-cross shield. 

" The pains of death are past ; 
Labor and sorrow cease ; 
And, life's long warfare closed at last, 
His soul is found in peace." 



The Benediction followed : — 

" The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all ever 
more." Amen. 

And the service was concluded with Mendelssohn's 
"Funeral March" and Pergolesi's "Stabat Mater." 

As the organ notes softly interpreted the great theme, 
the coffin was borne to the hearse, and the imposing 
procession moved on its way. 

During the funeral service a number of organizations 
of colored men took positions on Beacon Street, in opeu 
order, standing uncovered, as the cortege moved through 
the lonor and silent lines. 



THE OBSEQUIES. 85 

THE PROCESSION. 

The Procession was formed as follows: 

Mounted State Police. 

BAND. 

Sergeant- at- Arms. 

Legislative Committee of Arrangements. 

The Officiating Clergyman. 

The Pall-Bearers. 

Mounted Escort. THE HEARSE. Mounted Escort. 

MOURNERS. 

The Vice-President. 

Massachusetts Congressional Delegation. 

Committee of Congress. 

Chaplain and Sergeant-at-Arms of the United States Senate. 

His Excellency the Governor and Staff. 

His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor, and the Council. 

Heads of Departments. 

President of the Senate, Senators and Officers. 

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Representatives and 

Officers. 

The Mayor of Boston, and the City Council. 

Sheriff of Suffolk County. 

The Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme 
Judicial Court. 

Judges of the United States Courts. 

Officers of the Army and Navy. 

President and Fellows of Harvard College. 

Overseers of Harvard College. 

Class of 1830. 

The Reverend Clergy. 

Officers of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 

Standing Committee of the Massachusetts Society of the 
Cincinnati. 



86 CHARLES SUMXEE. 

goa r ernment of the boston board of trade. 

Delegation from the New York Chamber of Commerce. 

Trustees of the Boston Public Library. 

Trustees of the Art Museum. 

Representatives of the Cambridge City Government. 

Organizations of Colored Citizens. 

Colored Citizens to the Number of Two Thousand, 

(Including Fraternal and Hancock Associations of Boston, and Post 134, of the " Grand Army 
of the Republic") 

Delegations of Citizens from Dedham, Providence and 
Worcester. 



All the way from King's Chapel to Mount Auburn, 
a distance of at least five miles, the streets were lined 
with expectant but hushed and reverent crowds. This 
imposing demonstration has had but one parallel in our 
history, and that was the day set apart by proclamation 
for the contemplation of the virtues and sorrow for the 
death of Abraham Lincoln. Then "fears were in the 
way, and the keepers of the house trembled," and strong- 
men wept; — it was the supreme hour of the nation. 
But this was the mourning of a State for her Senator, 
who, after matchless fidelity, had fallen at his post; and 
the startled community were uniting in a great sympathy 
and a tender yearning to do him honor. 

It was nearly six o'clock when the long procession 
passed under the massive gateway of Mount Auburn, and 
began its winding march through Central and "Walnut 
Avenues and Arethusa Path, to the grave. The coffin 
was covered with beautiful flowers, which were buried 
with it. The officiating clergyman, the pall-bearers, and 
other gentlemen at the head of the procession, took 
position about the grave, Mr. Sumner's nearest friends 



THE OBSEQUIES. 87 

and the Massachusetts Delegation in Congress standing 
at its foot and a little at the left, with the Committee 
of the Legislature by their side at the right. At its 
head, and just behind the minister, were the few 
surviving members of Mr. Sumner's class in Harvard 
College ; while on the rising slope above and north of 
the grave, stood the Congressional Committee, the mem- 
bers of the Legislature, and invited guests. Behind, 
clustering on every hillock, and climbing to the very 
summit of the hill where the Tower stands, was the 
vast crowd of spectators, numbering many thousands, 
who waited in silence the last rites of sepulture. 

THE BURIAL. 

As the body was deposited at the side of the grave 
a chorus of male voices, selected from the Apollo Club, 
sang the first eight lines of the Ode of Horace : — 

" Integer vitas scelerisque purus 
Non eget Mauris jaculis neque arcu 
Nee venenatis gravida sagittis, 

Fusee, pharetra, 
Sive per Syrtes iter restuosas 
Sive facturus per inhospitalem 
Caucasum vel qua? loca fabulosus 
Lambit Hydaspes." 

While the solemn music was rising, two daughters of Dr. 
Samuel G. Howe, the only persons of their sex within 
the enclosure, stepped forward in behalf of Mrs. Hastings 
of San Francisco, the absent sister of Mr. Sumner, and 
placed upon the coffin, already covered with flowers of 
rarest beauty, one a cross and the other a wreath. 



88 CHARLES SUMNER. 

Hardly bead the sounds of the singers' voices died 
away upon the air, when the minister, speaking so that 
he could be heard by all around, said : — 

" I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, From 
henceforth blessed are the dead who die in the Lord : even so 
saith the Spirit ; for they rest from their labors and their 
works do follow them." 

The Lord's Prayer was afterwards said by the min- 
ister and mourners, and while the remains were slowly 
lowered into their final resting-place, the choir sano- 
Dr. Hedge's version of Luther's Choral : — 

" EIN EESTE BURG 1ST UNSER GOTT." 

" A mighty fortress is our God, 

A bulwark never failing; 
Our helper he amid the flood 

Of mortal ills prevailing ; 
For still our ancient foe 
Doth seek to work us w<><\ 
His craft and power are great, 
And, armed with cruel hate, 

On earth is not his equal. 

" Did we in our strength confide, 

Our striving would be losing, — 
Were not the right man on our side, 

The man of God's own choosing. 
Dost ask who that may be? 
Christ Jesus, it is he, 
Lord Sabbaoth his name, 
From age to age the same, 

And he must win the battle. 

" The word above all earthly powers,— 
No thanks to them— abideth, 
The spirit and the gifts are ours 
Through Him who with us sideth. 



THE OBSEQUIES. §9 

Let goods and kindred go, 
This mortal life also; 
The body they may kill,— 
God's truth abideth still, 
His kingdom is forever." 

During this beautiful service, the chorus chanting in 
solemn monotones the responsive "Amens," the scene 
was deeply impressive. 

The sky had taken on a subdued gray tinge, through 
which the light of the setting sun shone but faintly over 
the city of the dead. The air was silent, the vast assem- 
bly was hushed, and in the pauses of the service, from 
Boston— which lay plainly in sight towards the sea— and 
Cambridge, and Brookline, and all the neighboring 
towns, came slowly and faintly the vibrations of the 
tolling bells. 

After a few moments the benediction was pronounced. 

Thus with the mighty mourning of a sovereign State, 
the body was left with its kindred dust and to the vigils 
of the silent stars. 



"Kevive again thou summer rain 
The broken turf upon his bed ! 
Breathe, summer wind, thy tenderest strain 
Of low, sweet music overhead !" 



12 



COMMEMORATIVE OBSERVANCES. 



COMMEMORATIVE OBSERVANCES. 



Tuesday, the ninth of June, having been appointed 
for the delivery of the Eulogy, on that clay a procession 
was formed in Doric Hall, and marched from the State 
House to the Music Hall, in the following order :— 

State Police. 

Band. 

The Sergeant-at-Arms. 

The Committee of Arrangements. 

The Governor and Staff. 

The Lieutenant-Governor, and the Council. 

Heads of Departments. 

The President of the Senate, Senators, their Chaplain, 
and Clerk. 

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Representatives, 
their Chaplain and Clerk. 

Ex-Governors and Lieutenant-Governors of Massachusetts. 

Distinguished Guests. 

Governors of other States. 

The Sheriff of Suffolk County. 

The Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme 
Judicial Court. 

Judges of United States Courts 

Members of Congress. 

The Collector of Boston. 

Invited Guests. 



94 CHARLES SUMNER. 

The Committee endeavored to make the services on 
the occasion worthy of the State, and a fitting tribute 
to the memory of her great Senator. 

The Music Hall was decorated with care. The black 
and white hangings, the vines and flowers, the droop- 
ing laurel wreaths, and the organ veiled in a delicate 
drapery of smilax, gave grace and beauty to the 
spacious interior. A life-size portrait of Mr. Sumnee, 
of striking excellence, recalled to the great assemblage 
his commanding and attractive presence. 

At one o'clock, the appointed hour, the service began 
with the Organ Voluntary, followed by a Chant by the 
Temple Quartette of the words : — 

" Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while 
the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou 
shalt say, I have no pleasure in them ; 

" While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be 
not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain : 

"In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, 
and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders 
cease because thej^ are few, and those that look out of the win- 
dows be darkened, 

"And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound 
of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the 
bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low ; 

" Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and 
fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall nourish, 
and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: 
because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about 
the streets : 

" Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be 
broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel 
broken at the cistern. 

" Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was : and the 
spirit shall return unto God who gave it." 



COMMEMOKATIVE OBSERVANCES. 95 

Prayer was then offered by Rev. James Freeman 
Clarke, in the following words : 

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord; and who shall 
stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure 
heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn 
deceitfully. 

thou most righteous God, who lovest righteousness ! we, 
the people of this Commonwealth, assemble this day by our 
lawmakers and magistrates, to commemorate with glad and 
grateful words the life of a good man, who has finished the work 
given him to do. 

From thee we begin, Infinite Friend, from whom cometh every 
good gift, recognizing as among thy best gifts to us the good 
and the wise, who in the time of our need have stood up as a 
fire, and whose words have burned as a lamp— sending its beams 
far into the night and storm. 

Blessed be thy name that thou didst build this State on the 
foundation of just and wise men, Jesus Christ himself being its 
chief corner-stone; and that, from time to time, whenever new 
occasions have taught new duties, there have never been wanting, 
in thy good Providence, men of self-forgetting integrity, who 
have led us through every wilderness, and brought us in safety 
to the promised land. 

And we thank thee to-day that, when our iniquities separated 
between us and God, and our hands were defiled with blood ; 
when we enslaved our brother man and ground the faces of the 
poor; when the prophets prophesied falsely, and the people 
loved to have it so ; that then thou didst raise up among us 
those who proclaimed liberty to the captives, and taught us to 
loose the bands of wickedness, and let the oppressed go free, 
and to break every yoke. 

And, among these, we thank thee for our brother, who was 
called to stand so many years face to face with the advocates of 
tyranny and injustice. Thou didst make his face strong against 
their faces, and his forehead strong against their foreheads ; and 
he was not dismayed because of their looks, though they were a 
rebellious house. 

He put on justice, and it clothed him. Righteousness was 
the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. 



96 CHARLES SUMXEK. 

Thou didst endow him richly with elevation of moral sentiment, 
combined with breadth of intellectual culture ; and thou didst 
help him in the lingering conflict, through wearj T daj' and weary 
year, so that he did not heed the stinging bolts of scorn, or the 
words of fools who accounted his life madness, but fought the 
good fight to the end ; approving himself in all things a true 
servant of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in distresses, in 
stripes, in tumults ; by pureness, bj T knowledge, by long-suffer- 
ing, by kindness, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, b}^ 
the armor of righteousness on the right hand and the left, 
by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report ; as a 
deceiver and }*et true ; as unknown and yet well-known ; as 
dying, and behold ! he lived ; as chastened, and not killed ; as 
poor, but making men rich ; as sorrowful, and yet always 
rejoicing. 

We thank thee that he was enabled to outlive all calumny, all 
censure, all evil report ; and that when he died the great heart 
of the nation, from ocean to ocean, testified to his worth b}* a 
universal sorrow, and has thus shown that the memorial of 
virtue is immortal. We thank thee that his own dear State, 
which for a moment misunderstood him, once again uttered, 
while he could still hear her voice, her familiar blessing, and 
say, Well done, good and faithful servant ! 

And now, God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ! 
May it be saved in the present and future, as it has been saved 
in the past ! May it be saved from the cunning of selfish 
politicians, who care onty for personal triumph, not for the good 
of the State ; from those who make party success the highest 
good ; from the corruptions of avarice and ambition ! May not 
the labors be wasted of the wise and generous souls who have 
illustrated its noble history ! May not their toils and sorrows 
be in vain ! May not the blood shed on a hundred battle-fields 
for freedom and union be shed in vain ! 

But, seeing that we are compassed about with so great a 
cloud of witnesses, may we lay aside every weight ; and be 
followers of them who through faith and patience have inherited 
the promises. 



COMMEMORATIVE OBSERVANCES. 97 

Miss Clara Louise Kellogg then rendered, from 
Handel's Oratorio of the Messiah, the Aria :— 

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand 
at the latter day upon the earth : 

I see A God."° l,gh W ° rmS **'"* ^ ^ J6t in m ? flesh sha11 

''But now is Christ risen from' the dead, and become the first 
fruits of them that slept." 

The following poem, written for the occasion, by John 
Greenleaf Whittier, was then read by Prof. J. W. 
Churchill : — 

SUMNER. 

"I am not one who has disgraced beauty of sentiment by deformity of 
conduct or the maxims of a freeman by the actions of a slave; but by the 
7 Errant ^ ** ^ "* ^^^"^Uon's Defence 'of 1 ko^e 

O mother State !— the winds of March 
Blew chill o'er Auburn's Field of God, 

Where, slow, beneath a leaden arch 
Of sky, thy mourning children trod. 

And now, with all thy woods in leaf, 
Thy fields in flower, beside thy dead 

Thou sittest, in thy robes of grief, 
A Rachel yet uncomforted ! 

And once again the organ swells, 
Once more the flag is half-way hung, 

And yet again the mournful bells 
In all thy steeple-towers are rung. 

And I, obedient to thy will, 

Have come a simple wreath to lay, 
Superfluous, on a grave that still 

Is sweet with all the flowers of May. 

13 



98 CHARLES SUMMER. 

I take, with awe, the task assigned ; 

It may be that my friend might miss, 
In his new sphere of heart and mind, 

Some token from my hand in this. 

By man}' a tender memory moved, 
Along the past my thought I send ; 

The record of the cause he loved 
Is the best record of its friend. 

No trumpet sounded in his ear, 

He saw not Sinai's cloud and flame, 

But never yet to Hebrew seer 
A clearer voice of duty came. 

God said : " Break thou these yokes ; undo 
These heavy burdens. I ordain 

A work to last thy whole life through, 
A ministry of strife and pain. 

" Forego thy dreams of lettered ease, 
Put thou the scholar's promise b}', 
The rights of man are more than these." 
He heard, and answered : " Here am I ! " 

He set his face against the blast, 
His feet against the flinty shard, 

Till the hard service grew, at last, 
Its own exceeding great reward. 

Lifted like Saul's above the crowd, 
Upon his kingly forehead fell 

The first, sharp bolt of Slavery's cloud, 
Launched at the truth he urged so well. 

Ah ! never yet, at rack or stake, 

Was sorer loss made Freedom's gain, 

Than his, who suffered for her sake 
The beak-torn Titan's lingering pain ! 



COMMEMORATIVE OBSERVANCES. 99 

The fixed star of his faith, through all 
Loss, doubt, and peril, shone the same ; 

As, through a night of storm, some tall, 
Strong light-house lifts its steady flame. 

Beyond the dust and smoke he saw 

The sheaves of freedom's large increase, 

The holy fanes of equal law, 
The New Jerusalem of peace. 

The weak might fear, the worldling mock, 

The faint and blind of heart regret ; 
All knew at last, th' eternal rock 

On which his forward feet were set. 

The subtlest scheme of compromise 

Was folly to his purpose bold, 
The strongest mesh of party lies 

Weak to the simplest truth he told. 

One language held his heart and lip, 

Straight onward to his goal he trod, 
And proved the highest statesmanship 

Obedience to the voice of God. 

No wail was in his voice, — none heard 
When treason's storm-cloud blackest grew 

The weakness of a doubtful word ; 
His duty, and the end, he knew. 

The first to smite, the first to spare ; 

When once the hostile ensigns fell, 
He stretched out hands of generous care 

To lift the foe he fought so well. 

For there was nothing base or small 

Or craven in his soul's broad plan ; 
Forgiving all things personal, 

He hated only wrong to man. 



100 CHARLES SUMNER. 

The old traditions of Lis State, 

The memories of her great and good, 

Took from his life a fresher date, 
And in himself embodied stood. 

How felt the greed of gold and place, 

The venal crew that schemed and planned, 

The fine scorn of that haughty face, 
The spurning of that bribeless hand ! 

If than Rome's tribunes statelier 

He wore his senatorial robe, 
His loft}- port was all for her, 

The one clear spot on all the globe. 

If to the master's plea he gave 

The vast contempt his manhood felt, 

He saw a brother in the slave, — 
With man as equal man he dealt. 

Proud was he ? If his presence kept 
Its grandeur wheresoe'er he trod, 

As if from Plutarch's gallery stepped 
The hero and the demi-god, 

None failed, at least, to reach his ear, 
Nor want nor woe appealed in vain ; 

The homesick soldier knew his cheer, 
And blessed him from his ward of pain. 

Safely his dearest friends may own 
The slight defects he never hid, 

The surface-blemish in the stone 
Of the tall, stately pyramid. 

Suffice it that he never brought 
His conscience to the public mart ; 

But lived himself the truth he taught, 

White-soulecl, clean-handed, pure of heart. 



COMMEMORATIVE OBSERVANCES. 101 

What if he felt the natural pride 

Of power in noble use, too true 
With thin humilities to hide 

The work he did, the lore he knew? 

Was he not just ? Was any wronged 

By that assured self-estimate ? 
He took but what to him belonged, 

Unenvious of another's state. 

Well might he heed the words he spake, 

And scan with care the written page 
Through which he still shall warm and wake 

The hearts of men from age to a«-e. 

Ah ! who shall blame him now because 

He solaced thus his hours of pain ! 
Should not the o'erworn thresher pause, 

And hold to light his golden grain ? 

No sense of humor dropped its oil 

On the hard ways his purpose went ; 
Small play of fancy lightened toil ; 

He spake alone the thing he meant. 

He loved his books, the Art that hints 

A beauty veiled behind its own, 
The graver's line, the pencil's tints, 

The chisel's shape evoked from stone. 

He cherished, void of selfish ends, 

The social courtesies that bless 
And sweeten life, and loved his friends 

With most unworldly tenderness. 

But still his tired eyes rarely learned 

The glad relief by Nature brought : 
Her mountain ranges never turned 

His current of persistent thought. 



102 CHARLES SUMNER. 

The sea rolled chorus to his speech 
Three-banked like Latium's tall trireme, 

With laboring oars ; the grove and beach 
"Were Forurn and the Academe. 

The sensuous joy from all things fair 
His strenuous bent of soul repressed, 

And left from youth to silvered hair 
Few hours for pleasure, none for rest. 

For all his life was poor without ; 

O Nature, make the last amends ; 
Train all thy flowers his grave about, 

And make tlry singing-birds his friends ! 

Eevive again, thou summer rain, 
The broken turf upon his bed ! 

Breathe, summer wind, thy tenclerest strain 
Of low, sweet music overhead ! 

"With calm and beaut}* symbolize 
His peace which follows long annoj", 

And lend our earth-bent, mourning eyes 
Some hint of his diviner jo}*. 

For safe with right and truth he is, 
As God lives he must live alway ; 

There is no end for souls like his, 
No night for children of the day ! 

Nor cant nor poor solicitudes 

Made weak his life's great argument ; 

Small leisure his for frames and moods 
Who followed duty where she went. 

The broad, fair fields of God he saw 
Beyond the bigot's narrow bound ; 

The truths he moulded into law, 
In Christ's beatitudes he found. 



COMMEMORATIVE OBSERVANCES. 103 

His State-craft was the Golden Rule, 

His right of vote a sacred trust ; 
Clear, over threat and ridicule, 

All heard his challenge : " Is it just?" 

And when the hour supreme had come, 

Not for himself a thought he gave ; 
In that last pang of martyrdom, 

His care was for the half-freed slave. 

Not vainly dusky hands upbore, 

In prayer, the passing soul to heaven 

Whose mercy to His suffering poor 
Was service to the Master given. 

Long shall the good State's annals tell, 
Her children's children long be taught, 

How, praised or blamed, he guarded well 
The trust he neither shunned nor sought. 

If for one moment turned thy face, 

Mother, from thy son, not long 
He waited calmly in his place 

The sure remorse which follows wrong. 

Forgiven be the State he loved 

The one brief lapse, the single blot ; 
Forgotten be the stain removed, 

Her righted record shows it not ! 

The lifted sword above her shield 

With jealous care shall guard his fame ; 

The pine-tree on her ancient field 

To all the winds shall speak his name. 

The marble image of her son 

Her loving hands shall yearly crown, 

And from her pictured Pantheon 
His grand, majestic face look down. 



101 CHARLES SUMNER. 

O State so passing rich before, 

Who now shall doubt th}' highest claim ? 

The world that counts thy jewels o'er 
Shall longest pause at Sumner's name ! 



Miss Adelaide Phillips then sang Mendelssohn's 
Aria : — 

" O rest in the Lord — wait patiently for Him and He shall 
give thee thy heart's desires. 

" Commit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him, and fret not 
thyself because of evil-doers." 

At the <?lose of the Eulogy the Quartette sang : — 

" Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee : 
He never will suffer the righteous to fall ; He is at thy right 
hand. Thy mercy, Lord, is great, and far above the heavens. 
Let none be made ashamed that wait upon Thee ! " 

The Introductory Remarks by Hon. Alexander H. 
Bullock were as follows : — 

In the train of those paying mournful tribute to Charles 
Sumner most fit is the presence of the Legislature of Massa- 
chusetts. By their act, twenty-four years ago, the gate was 
opened through which he passed to the Senate of the United 
States for life. And now, after this lapse of time and the 
close of his career, the Government and the people of this 
Commonwealth contemplate with just and solemn satisfaction 
the contribution they then made to the higher sphere of states- 
manship. They recall his first appearance there, seemingly 
lost amidst a majority who were the embodiment and type of 
ideals so much less heroic and elevated than his own ; with 
what masterly unreserve he began and continued his great 
mission, abating nothing, disguising nothing, sweeping in his 
perspective many of the vast results which have since been 



COMMEMORATIVE OBSERVANCES. 105 

attained ; how he lived to see his grand central aspirations 
realized, his main purposes accomplished, at his death leaving 
as a truth, never before so well illustrated at the Capital, that 
the character of statesman and senator derives added strength 
and lustre from the character of scholar and philanthropist, 
liberator and reformer. 

At the moment of the greatest triumph of Wilberforce, on 
the passage of his bill abolishing the slave trade, Sir Samuel 
Romilry, amid the ringing acclamations of the House of Com- 
mons, called upon the younger members to observe how supe- 
rior were the rewards of virtue to all the vulgar conceptions 
of ambition. In the hour of the greatest triumph of Sumner — 
the hour of his death — a like admonition arose from his vacant 
chair, calling upon American public life to mark the lofty 
exemplar, b}' whom, amid abounding corruption, comparative 
poverty had been held as honor ; to whom artifice and intrigue 
had been an abhorrence ; who, in the long practice of official 
transactions and official manners, had never acquired an official 
heart ; who had guarded his conscience against every assault, 
and always kept that vessel pure ; upon whose headstone the 
whole Republic inscribes for its souvenance, "Incorruptible 
and unapproachable." 

With one mind the Senators and Representatives of Massa- 
chusetts, successors to those who, nearly a quarter of a century 
since, sent him forth with the seal of his great commission, are 
present by these final and august ceremonies to deliver him 
over to history. In selecting their orator for this tender office, 
they could not fail to call for him who best would give voice 
to their Eulogy. As our lamented Senator was a master in all 
the art of letters, it is fitting that he should be embalmed by 
the art of another and similar master and personal friend. I 
introduce to you Mr. George William Curtis. 

Mr. Curtis then rose and began the Eulogy. 

14 



EULOGY BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 



THE EULOGY. 



The prayer is said— the dirge is sung; from 
the waters of the Bay to the hills of Berkshire 
the funeral bells of the Commonwealth have 
tolled; the Congress of the United States, of 
which he was the oldest member in continuous 
service, has in both Houses spoken his praises — 
no voice more eloquent than that of his oppo- 
nents; the race to whose elevation his life was 
consecrated has bewailed him with filial grati- 
tude; this city, his birthplace and his home, has 
proudly mourned its illustrious citizen; the pul- 
pit and the press everywhere in the land have 
blended sorrow and admiration; and now his 
native State, with all its honored magistracy — 
the State which gave him his great opportunity, 
clothing his words with the majesty of Massa- 
chusetts, so that when he spoke it was not the 
voice of a man, but of a Commonwealth — lament- 
ing a son so beloved, a servant so faithful, a 
friend so true, comes last of all to say farewell, 



110 CHARLES SUMNER. 

and to deliver the character and career of 
Charles Sumner to history and the judgment 
of mankind. I know how amply, how eloquently, 
how tenderly, the story of his life has been told. 
In this place yon heard it in words that spoke 
for the culture and the conscience of the country 
— for the prosperous and happy. And yonder 
in Faneuil Hall his eulogy fell from lips that 
must always glow when they mention him — lips 
that spoke for the most wronged and most 
unfortunate in the land, who never saw the face 
of Sumner, but whose children's children will 
bless his name forever. I might well hesitate 
to stand here if I did not know that, enriched 
by your sympathy, my words, telling the same 
tale, will seem to your generous hearts to pro- 
long for a moment the requiem that you would 
not willingly let die. 

Nor think the threefold strain superfluous. 
How well this universal eulogy — these mingling 
voices of various nativity, but all American- 
befits a man whose aims and efforts were uni- 
versal; whom neither a city, nor a State, nor 
a party, nor a nation, nor a race, bound with 
any local limitation! On a lofty hill overlooking 
the lake of Cayuga, in New York, stands a 



THE EULOGY. HI 

noble tree, in the grounds of the Cornell Uni- 
versity, under which an Oxford scholar, choosing 
America for his home because America is the 
home of Liberty, has placed a seat upon which 
he has carved, "Above all nations is Humanity." 
That is the legend which Charles Sumxer 
carved upon his heart, and sought to write upon 
the hearts of his fellow-citizens and of the world. 
And if at this moment my voice should suddenly 
sink into silence, I can believe that this hall 
would thrill and murmur with the last words he 
ever publicly spoke in Massachusetts, standing 
on this very spot: "Nor would I have my 
country forget at any time, in the discharge of 
its transcendent duties, that, since the rule of 
conduct and of honor is the same for nations as 
for individuals, the greatest nation is that which 
does most for humanity." 

Amidst the general sorrow, Massachusetts 
mourns him by the highest right, for with all 
the grasp of his hope and his cosmopolitan 
genius, perhaps for those very reasons, he was 
essentially a Massachusetts man. And here I 
touch the first great influence that moulded your 
Senator. This is the Puritan State, and the 
greatness of Summer was the greatness of the 



112 CHARLES SUMNER. 

Puritan genius — the greatness of moral power. 
Learning and culture and accomplishment; aes- 
thetic taste and knowledge; the grace of society; 
the scholar's rich resource in travel; illustrious 
friendships in every land; the urbanity and charm 
of a citizen of the world — all these he had; all 
these you know; yet all these were but the vel- 
vet in which the iron Puritan hand was clad — 
the Puritan hand which in other days had smit- 
ten kings and dynasties hip and thigh; had 
saved civil and religious liberty in England; had 
swept the Mediterranean of pirates; had avenged 
the Lord's 

" slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; " 

the Puritan hand which, reaching out across the 
sea, sterner than the icy sternness of the New 
England shore, grasped a new continent, and 
wrought the amazing miracle of America. 

The Puritan spirit, in the larger sense, en- 
riched with many nationalities, broader, more 
generous, more humane, is the master influence 
of American civilization, and among all our 
public men it has no type so satisfactory and 
complete as Charles Sumner. He was the son 
of Massachusetts. By the fruit let the tree be 



THE EULOGY. H3 

judged. The State to whose hard coast the 
Mayflower came, and upon whose rocks it 
dropped its seed— the State in which the mingled 
Puritan and Pilgrim spirit has been most active 
— is to-day the chief of Commonwealths. It is 
the community in which the average of well- 
being is higher than in any State we know in 
history. Puritan in origin though it be, it is 
more truly liberal and free than any similar 
community in the world. The fig and the pome- 
granate and the almond will not grow there, nor 
the nightingale sing, but nobler blossoms of the 
old human stock than its most famous children, 
the sun never shone upon ; nor has the liberty- 
loving heart of man heard sweeter music than 
the voices of James Otis and Samuel Adams, 
of John Adams and Joseph Warren, of Josiah 
Qutncy and Charles Sumner. Surely I may 
say so, born in the State that Poger Williams 
founded — Roger Williams, the prophet whom 
Massachusetts stoned. 

Into this State and these inflaences Charles 
Sumner was born sixty-three years ago, while 
as yet the traditions of colonial "New England 
were virtually unchanged. Here were the town- 
meeting, the constable, the common school, the 

15 



114 CHARLES SUMNER. 

training-day, the general intelligence, the moral- 
ity, the habit of self-government, the homogeneity 
of population, the ample territory, the universal 
instinct of law. Here was the full daily practice 
of what De Tocqueville afterward called the 
two or three principal ideas which form the 
basis of the social theory of the United States, 
and which seemed to make a Republic possible, 
practicable, and wise. It was one of the good 
fortunes of Sumner's life that, born amidst these 
influences, he used to the utmost the advantage 
of school and college. To many men youth 
itself is so sweet a siren that in hearing her 
song they forget all but the pleasure of listening 
to it. But the sibyl saved no scroll from Sum- 
ner; he had the wisdom to seize them all. His 
classmates, gayly returning late at night, saw 
the studious light shining in his window. The 
boy was hard at work, already in those plastic 
years storing his mind and memory, which 
seemed indeed an "inability to forget," with the 
literature and historic lore which gave his later 
discourse such amplitude and splendor of illus- 
tration that, like a royal robe, it was stiff and 
cumbrous and awkward with exaggerated rich- 
ness of embroidery. He never lost this vast 



THE EULOGY. H5 

capacity of work, and his life had no idle hours. 
Long afterward, when he was in Paris, recover- 
ing from the blow in the Senate, ordered not to 
think or read, and daily, as his physician lately 
tells ns, undergoing a torture of treatment which 
he refused to mitigate by anaesthetics, simply 
unable to do nothing, he devoted himself to the 
study and collection of engravings, in which he 
became an expert. And I remember in the mid- 
summer of 1871, when he remained, as was his 
custom, in Washington, after the city was de- 
serted by all but its local population, and when 
I saw him daily, that he rose at seven in the 
morning, and with but a slight breakfast at nine, 
sat at his desk in the library hard at work until 
five in the afternoon. It was his vacation: the 
Aveather was tropical; and he was sixty years 
old. The renowned Senator at his post was still 
the solitary midnight student of the college. 

But other influences mingled in his education, 
and helped to mould the man. While his heart 
burned with the tale of Plutarch's heroes, with 
the story of ancient states, and the politics of 
Greece and Rome and modern Europe, he lived 
in this historic city, and was therefore familiar 
with many of the most inspiring scenes of our 



116 CHARLES SUMNER. 

American story. I know not if the people of 
this neighborhood are always conscious of the 
hallowed ground upon which they daily tread. 
We who come hither from other States, pilgrims 
to the cradle of American independence, are 
moved by emotions such as we cannot else- 
where feel. Here is the "Old South" Meeting- 
house — and here may it long remain ! — where, 
however changed, still in imagination Sam Adams 
calls the Sons of Liberty to their duty. There 
is the old State-house, where James Otis, with 
electric eloquence, brings a continent to its feet. 
Beneath is the ground where Crispus Attucks 
fell. Beyond is Faneuil Hall, the plainest and 
most reverend political temple now standing in 
the world, and upon the principles which are its 
inseparable traditions has been founded the most 
humane republic in history. There is the Old 
North steeple, on which Paul Pevere's lantern 
lights the land to independence. Below is the 
water on which the scarlet troops of Percy and 
of Howe glitter in the June sunshine of ninety- 
nine years ago; and lo! memorial of a battle 
lost and a cause won, the tall, gray, melancholy 
shaft on Bunker Hill rises — rises "till it meets 
the sun in his coming, while the earliest light of 



THE EULOGY. H7 

morning gilds it, and parting day lingers and 
plays on its summit." 

These scenes, as well as his books and college, 
were the school of Summer; and as the tall and 
awkward youth, dreaming of Marathon and 
Arbela, of Sempach and Morgarten, walked on 
Bunker Hill, and his eyes wandered over peace- 
ful fields and happy towns to Concord and 
Lexington, doubt not that the genius of his 
native land whispered to him that all knowledge 
and the highest training and the purest purpose 
were but the necessary equipment of the ambi- 
tion that would serve in any way a country 
whose cause in his own day, as in the day of 
Bunker Hill, was the cause of human nature. 
Charles Sumner was an educated man, a col- 
lege-bred man, as all the great revolutionary 
leaders of Massachusetts were; and he knew, as 
every intelligent man knows, that from the day 
when Themistocles led the educated Athenians 
at Salamis to that when Yon Moltke marshalled 
the educated Germans against France, the sure 
foundations of states are laid in knowledge, not 
in ignorance, and that every sneer at education, 
at cultivation, at book-learning, which is the 
recorded wisdom of the experience of mankind, 



118 CHARLES SUMNER, 

is the demagogue's sneer at intelligent liberty, 
inviting national degeneration and ruin. 

Sumner was soon at the Law School the 
favorite pupil of that accomplished magistrate 
Judge Story, the right-hand of Marshall, to 
whom in difficult moments the great "Webster 
turned for law. But the character of his legal 
studies when, a little later, he was lecturing at 
the Law School — for he spoke chiefly of consti- 
tutional law and the law of nations — showed 
even then the bent of his feeling, the vague 
reaching out toward the future, the first faint 
hints and foreshowings of his own ultimate 
career. Could it have been revealed to him in 
that modest lecture-room at Cambridge as he 
was unfolding to a few students the principles 
of international law, which in its full glory he 
believed to be nothing less than the science of 
the moral relations of states to each other, that 
one day in the Senate of the United States, and 
in its chief and most honorable place, he should 
plead for the practical application of the prin- 
ciples which he cherished, a recognized authority, 
and himself one of the lawgivers whom he had 
described as the reformers of nations and the 
builders of human society, how well might he 



THE EULOGY. H9 

have seen that culmination of his career as the 
most secret hope of his heart fulfilled! But 
again, as he stood there, could he have seen as 
in a vision that one day also he should stand 
in that Senatorial arena in deadly conflict with 
crime against humanity — a conflict that shook 
the continent and arrested the world — and as a 
general upon the battle-field marshals all his 
forces, holding his swift and glittering lines in 
hand — his squadrons and regiments and artillery, 
his skirmishers and reserves, massing and dis- 
persing at his supreme will, and at last, snatch- 
ing all his force, hurls it at the foe in one 
blasting bolt of fire and victory — so he, in that 
other and greater field, should gather up all the 
accumulated resources of his learning, all the 
training of the law, all the deep instincts and 
convictions of his conscience, and hurl them in 
one blazing and resistless mass in the very fore- 
front of that mighty debate that flamed into 
civil war, melting four millions of chains, and 
regenerating a nation — could all this have been 
revealed to him, I doubt if he could have pre- 
pared himself for the great part that he was to 
play with more conscience or more care. 

Then to the influences that made the man 



120 CHARLES SUMNER. 

was added a residence in Europe. He returned 
a polished cosmopolitan ; a learned youth who 
had sat upon the bench in "Westminster Hall, 
and taught the judges the rulings of their own 
courts; who had mingled on equal terms in the 
bouts of lettered wit, no longer at the Mermaid, 
but at Holland House, and the breakfast-rooms 
of accomplished scholars in London and Paris 
and Berlin and Rome. He returned knowing 
almost every man and woman of renown in 
Europe, and he brought back what he carried 
away — a stainless purity of life and loftiness of 
aim, the habit of incessant work, which was the 
law of his being, and the tastes of a jurist, but 
not those of a practising lawyer. His look, his 
walk, his dress, his manner, were not those of 
the busy advocate, but of the cultivated and 
brilliant man of society — the Admirable Crichtou 
of the saloons. He was oftener seen in the 
refined circles of the city, in the libraries and 
dining-rooms of Prescott and Quincy, of Ban- 
croft and Ticknor, than in the courts of law. 
Distinguished foreigners, constantly arriving, 
brought him letters, and he took them to the 
galleries and the college. But while he saun- 
tered, he studied. In his office he was diligently 



THE EULOGY. 121 

editing great works of law; not practising at 
the bar, for, indeed, he was not formed for a 
jury lawyer, where the jury was less than a 
nation, or mankind. The electric agility, the 
consummate tact, the readiness for every re- 
source, the humor that brightens or withers, the 
command of the opposite point of view, the 
superficial ardor, the facility of simulation that 
makes the worse appear the better reason, the 
passionate gust and sweep of eloquent appeal — 
these were lacking, and wanting these, he did 
not seek the laurels of the jury advocate. Sum- 
ner's legal mind at this time, and throughout 
his life, was largely moulded, trained to the 
contemplation of great principles and to lofty 
research. As one of his admiring comrades, 
himself a renowned lawyer, says of him, "In 
sporting terms, he had a good eye for country, 
but no scent for a trail." The movement of his 
mind was grand and comprehensive. He spoke 
naturally, not in subtle and dextrous pleas, but 
in stately and measured orations. 

When he returned from Europe he was thought 
to have been too much fascinated by England, 
and throughout his life it was sometimes said 
that he was still enthralled by his admiration for 

16 



122 CHARLES SUMNER. 

that country. But what is more natural to an 
American than love of England? Does not 
Hawthorne instinctively call it "Our Old Home"? 
The Pilgrims came to plant a purer England, 
and their children, the colonists, took up arms 
to maintain a truer England, but an England 
still. They became independent, but they did 
not renounce their race nor their language, and 
their victory left them the advanced outpost of 
English political progress and civilization. The 
principles that we most proudly maintain to-day, 
those to which Sumner's whole life was devoted, 
are English traditions. The great muniments of 
individual liberty in every degree descended to 
us from our fathers. The Commonwealth, justice 
as the political corner-stone, the rule of the con- 
stitutional majority, the habeas corpus, the trial 
by jury, freedom of speech and of the press — 
these are English, and they are ours. I do not 
agree with the melancholy Fisher Anies that 
"the immortal spirit of the wood-nymph Liberty 
dwells only in the English oak"; but the most 
patriotic American may well remember that indi- 
vidual freedom sometimes seems almost surer 
and sturdier in England than here, and may 
wisely repair to drink at those elder fountains. 



THE EULOGY. }23 

tfo Englishman in this generation has more 
influenced the thought of his country than John 
Stuart Mill, and the truest American will find 
upon his heroic pages gleams of a fairer and 
ampler America than ever in vision even Samuel 
Adams saw. No, no. Plymouth Rock was but 
a stepping-stone from one continent to another 
in the great march of the same historic develop- 
ment, and to-day, with electric touch, we grasp 
the hand of England under the sea, that the 
tumult of the ocean may not toss us further 
asunder, but throb as the beating of one common 
heart. Is it strange, then, that the young law- 
yer, whose deepest instinct was love of freedom, 
and whose youth had been devoted to the study 
of that noble science whose highest purpose is 
the defence of individual right, after long resi- 
dence in the land of John Selden, of Coke, of 
Mansfield, of Blackstone, of Eomilly, as well as of 
Shakespeare and Bacon, of Newton and Jeremy 
Taylor— a land which had appealed in every 
way to his heart, his mind, his imagination, 
whose history had inspired, whose learning had 
armed him to be a liberator of the oppressed — 
should always have turned with admiration to 
the country ""Where," as her laureate sings — 



124: CHARLES SUMNER. 

"Where freedom broadens slowly down 
From precedent to precedent"? 

Such were the general influences that moulded 
the young Sumner. But to what a situation in 
his own country he returned ! — a situation neither 
understood nor suspected by the fastidious and 
elegant circles which received him. The man 
never lived who enjoyed more or was more fitted 
to enjoy the higher delights of human society 
than Sumner, or who might have seemed to 
those who scanned his habits and his tastes so 
little adapted for the heroic part. Could the 
scope and progress and culmination of the great 
contest which had already begun have been 
foreseen and measured, Charles Sumner would 
probably have been selected as the type of the 
cultivated and scholarly gentleman who would 
recoil from the conflict as Sir Thomas Browne 
shunned the stern tumult of the Great Rebellion. 

In speaking of that conflict I shall speak 
plainly ; I hope to speak truly. To turn to Mr. 
Sumner's public career is to open a chapter of 
our history written in fire and closed in blood, 
but which we must be willing to recall if we 
would justly measure the man. Trained in his 
own expectation for other ends, framed for 



THE EULOGY. 125 

friendship, for gentleness, for professional and 
social ease, and the placid renown of letters, he 
was suddenly caught up into the stormy cloud, 
and his life became a strife that filled a genera- 
tion. But during all that tremendous time, on 
the one hand enthusiastically trusted, on the 
other contemptuously scorned and . hated, his 
heart was that of a little child. He said no 
unworthy word, he did no unmanly deed ; dis- 
honor fled his face ; and to-day those who so 
long and so naturally but so wrongfully believed 
him their enenry strew rosemary for remembrance 
upon his grave. 

Down to the year 1830 the moral agitation 
against slavery in this country smouldered. But 
in that year Benjamin Lundy touched with fire 
the soul of William Lloyd Garrison, and that 
agitation burst out again irrepressibly. You re- 
member — who can forget? — the passionate onset 
of the Abolitionists. It was conscience rising in 
insurrection. They made their great appeal with 
the ardor of martyrs and the zeal of primitive 
Christians. Fifth-monarchy men, ranters, Ana- 
baptists, were never more repugnant to their 
times than they, and they became the prey of 
the worst and most disorderly passions. The 



126 CHARLES SUMNER. 

abolition missionaries were mobbed, imprisoned, 
maimed, murdered, but still, as in the bitter days 
of Puritan persecution in Scotland, the undaunted 
voices of the Covenanters were heard singrins: 
hymns that echoed and re-echoed from peak to 
peak of the barren mountains until the great 
dumb wilderness was vocal with praise, so the 
solemn appeal of the Abolitionists to the Golden 
Rule and the Declaration of Independence echoed 
from solitary heart to heart until the land rang 
with the litany of liberty. In politics the dis- 
cussion had been stamped out like a threatening 
fire upon the prairie whenever it arose. But 
soon after Mr. Sumner's return from Europe 
this, too, flamed out afresh in the attempted 
annexation of Texas. Early in 1845 the plan 
was consummated. Mr. Sumner was a "Whig, 
but then and always he was above all a man. 
He was too well versed in the history of free- 
dom not to know that the great victories over 
despotism and slavery in every form had been 
won by united action, and he knew that united 
action implies organization and a party. But 
while great political results are to be gained by 
means of great parties, he knew that a party 
which is too blind to see or too cowardly to 



THE EULOGY. J27 

acknowledge the real issue, which pursues its 
ends, however noble, by ignoble means, which 
tolerates corruption, which trusts unworthy men, 
which suffers the public service to be prostituted 
to personal ends, defies reason and conscience, 
and summons all honest men to oppose it. 
"When conscience goes, all goes; and wherever 
conscience went, Charles Sumner followed. It 
took him out of those delightful drawing-rooms 
and tranquil libraries; it drew him away from 
old companions and cherished friends; it exposed 
him to their suspicion, their hostility, their scorn; 
it forbade him the peaceful future of his dreams 
and expectations; it placed him at the fiery heart 
of the fiercest conflict of the century; it hedged 
his life with insults and threats and plots of 
assassination; it bared his head to the dreadful 
blow that struck him senseless to the Senate 
floor, and sent him a tortured wanderer beyond 
the sea; later it separated him from the co- 
operation of colleagues, and severed him from 
his party; and at last it exposed him, sick in 
body and in mind, to the blow that wounded 
his soul, the censure of his beloved Massachu- 
setts. But he did not quail; he did not falter; 
he showed himself still to be her worthy son. 



128 CHARLES SUMNER. 

Wherever conscience went, Charles Sumner 
followed. " God help me ! " cried Martin Luther, 
" I can no other." " God help me ! " said 
Charles Sumner, "I must do my duty." 

The Whigs are, or ought to be, he said, in 
1845, the party of freedom. But when they 
refused to recognize the real contest in the 
country by rejecting in their National Conven- 
tion of 1818 the Wilmot Proviso, Mr. Sumner 
went with the other Conscience Whigs to 
Worcester, and organized the Free-soil party; 
and when, in the winter of 1850-51, the Leg- 
islature of Massachusetts was to elect the suc- 
cessor of Daniel Webster in the Senate of 
the United States, the Free-soil chiefs — as 
upright, able, and patriotic a body of political 
leaders as ever Massachusetts had — deliberately 
selected Mr. Sumner as their candidate — a 
selection which showed the estimate of the 
man by those who knew him most intimately, 
and who most thoroughly understood the times. 
He was young, strong, learned, variously 
accomplished, a miracle of industry, zealous, 
pure, of indomitable courage, and of supreme 
moral energy. But he had little political ambi- 
tion, and in 1846 had peremptorily declined to 



THE EULOGY. "| ;_>'.) 

be a candidate for Congress. He was not a 
member of either of the great parties. He 
would not make any pledge of any kind, or 
move his tongue, or wink his eye, to secure 
success. He was pledged then and always and 
only to his sense of right. He stood for no 
partisan end whatever, but simply and solely 
for uncompromising resistance to slavery. The 
contest of the election was long; it lasted for 
three months, and on the 24th of April, 1851, 
he was elected. "I accept," he said, "as the 
servant of Massachusetts, mindful of the senti- 
ments uttered by her successive Legislatures, of 
the genius which inspires her history, and of 
the men, her perpetual pride and ornament, 
who breathed into her that breath of liberty 
which early made her an example to her sister 
States." How these lofty words lift us out of 
the grossness of public corruption and inca- 
pacity into the air of ideal states and public 
men! What a stately summons are they to 
his beloved Massachusetts once more to take 
the lead, and again to guide her sister States 
to greater political purity and the ancient stand- 
ards of public character and service! 

The hour in which Mr. Sumxer wrote those 



17 



130 CHARLES SUMNER. 

words — the hour of his entrance upon public 
life — was the darkest of our history. But if his 
mind had turned regretfully to that tranquil 
career of his earlier anticipation, how well 
might his good genius have whispered to him 
what the flower of English gentlemen and 
scholars had written three hundred years before, 
"To what purpose should our thoughts be 
directed to various kinds of knowledge unless 
room be afforded for putting it into practice, so 
that public advantage may be the result?" Or 
that other strain, full of the music of a conse- 
crated soul, in which Philip Sidney writes to 
his father-in-law, Walsingham, "I think a wise 
and constant man ought never to grieve while 
he doth play, as a man may say, his own part 
truly." 

"What, then, was the political situation when 
Mr. Sumner entered the Senate? Slavery had 
apparently subdued the country. Grand Juries 
in the Northern States presented citizens who, 
in time of peace, wished to discuss vital public 
questions as guilty of sedition. The Legis- 
latures were summoned to make their speeches 
indictable offences. In the Legislature of Rhode 
Island such a bill was reported. The Governor 



THE EULOGY. 131 

of New York favored such a law. The Gov- 
ernor of Ohio delivered a citizen of that State 
to the authorities of another to he tried for 
helping a slave to escape. The Governor of 
Massachusetts said that all discussion of the 
subject which tended to incite insurrection had 
been held to be indictable. Every great 
national office was then, and long had been, 
held by the ministers of slavery. The American 
embassadors in Europe were everywhere silent, 
or smoothly apologized. Every Committee in 
Congress was the servant of slavery, and when 
the Vice-President left his seat in the Senate it 
was filled by another like himself. All the 
attendants who stood around him, the door- 
keepers, messengers, sergeants-at-arms, down to 
the very pages who noiselessly skimmed the 
floor, were selected by its agents. Beyond the 
superb walls of the Capitol, which Senator Ben- 
ton had long solemnly warned the country was 
built by permission of that Supreme Power 
which would seize and occupy it when the time 
came, the whole vast system of national offices 
was within the patronage of slavery. Every 
little Post-Office, every Custom-House clerkship, 
was a bribe to silence, while the Postmaster- 



132 CHARLES SUMNER. 

General of the United States robbed the mails 
at its bidding. When Sumner entered the Sen- 
ate the most absolute subserviency to slavery 
was decreed as the test of nationality, and that 
power did not hesitate to declare that any seri- 
ous effort, however lawfully made, to change its 
policy would strike the tocsin of civil war. 
Meanwhile, at the very moment of his election 
the horrors of the Fugitive Slave Law had 
burst upon thousands of innocent homes. 
Mothers snatched their children and fled, they 
knew not whither. Brave men, long safe in 
recovered liberty, were seized for no crime but 
misfortune, and hurried to their doom. Young 
men and girls who had been always free, 
always residents of their own States, were kid- 
napped and sold. The anguish, the sublime 
heroism, of this ghastly persecution fills one of 
the most tragical and most inspiring epochs of 
our story. Even those who publicly sustained 
the law from a sense of duty secretly helped 
the flying fugitives upon their way. The 
human heart is stronger than sophistry. The 
man who impatiently exclaimed that of course 
the law was hard, but it was the law, and 
must be obeyed, suddenly felt the quivering, 



THE EULOGY. 133 

panting fugitive clinging to his knees, guilty of 
no crime, and begging only the succor which 
no honest heart would refuse a dog cowering 
upon his threshold; and as he heard the dread 
power thundering at the door, "I am the Law, 
give me my prey!" in the same moment he 
heard God knocking at his heart, "Inasmuch as 
ye have done it unto the least of these my lit- 
tle ones, ye have done it unto me!" 

Those days are passed. That fearful conflict 
is over; and the flowers just strewn all through 
these sorrowing States, indiscriminately upon the 
graves of the blue and the gray, show how 
truly it is ended. Heaven knows I speak of it 
with no willingness, with no bitterness; but how 
can I show you Charles Sumner if I do not 
show you the time that made him what he 
was? This was the political and moral situa- 
tion of the country when he took the oath as 
Senator, on the first of December, 1851. The 
famous political triumvirate of the former gen- 
eration was gone. Mr. Calhoun, the master- 
will of the three, had died in the previous year. 
Mr. Webster was Secretary of State; and Henry 
Clay, with fading eye, and bowed frame, and 
trembling voice — Henry Clay, Compromise incar- 



134 



CHARLES SUMNER. 



nate— feebly tottered out of the chamber as 
Charles Sumner, Conscience incarnate, came 
in. As he took the oath the new triumvirate 
was complete, for Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase 
had taken their seats two years before. For 
some months Mr. Sumner did not speak upon 
the great topic, and many of his friends at 
home thought him keeping silence too long, 
half fearing that he, too, had been enchanted 
by the woeful Circe of the South. They did not 
know how carefully slavery prevented him from 
finding an opportunity. A month before he 
could get the floor for his purpose, Theodore 
Parker said, in a public speech, "I wish he 
had spoken long ago. . . . But it is for 
him to decide, not for us. ? A fool's bolt is 
soon shot,' while a wise man often reserves his 
fire." At length, on the 26th of August, 1852, 
after many efforts to be heard, Mr. Sumner 
obtained the floor, saying as he arose, "The 
subject is at last broadly before the Senate, 
and by the blessing of God it shall be dis- 
cussed." 

The first great speech upon the repeal of the 
Fugitive Slave Law was the most significant 
event in the Senate since Mr. Webster's reply 



THE EULOGY. 135 

to Hayne, and an epitome of Mr. Sumner's 
whole public career. It was one of the words 
that are events, and from which historical 
epochs take their departure. These are strong 
words. See if they are justified. The slavery 
debate was certainly the most momentous that 
had ever occurred in the country, and brave 
words had been already uttered for freedom. 
The subtle, and sanguine, and sagacious Seward 
had spoken often and wisely. The passionless 
Chase, with massive and "Websterian logic, had 
pressed his solid reasoning home; and the gay 
humor of Hale had irradiated his earnest and 
strenuous appeals. But all of these men were 
known to their colleagues as members of par- 
ties, as politicians, as men of political ambition. 
"With such elements and men slavery was accus- 
tomed to deal. Carefully studying the Senator 
from New York, it saw, with the utmost purity 
of character, trained ability, acute political 
instinct, and partisan habit, the intellectual opti- 
mist who grasped the situation with his brain 
rather than with his heart and conscience. It 
tested him by its own terrible earnestness. It 
weighed him in the balance of its own unquail- 
ing and uncompromising resolution, and found 



136 CHARLES SUMNER. 

him wanting. Do not misunderstand me. Mr. 
Seward was the only political leader for whom 
I have ever felt the admiring loyalty which 
older men felt for Webster, and Calhoun, and 
Clay. His career has been nobly set forth by 
your own distinguished citizen (Mr. Adams) in 
his discourse before the Legislature of New 
York. And as he went to Albany to say what 
he believed to be the truth, so have I come 
hither. Slavery knew Mr. Seward to be accus- 
tomed to political considerations, to party neces- 
sities, to the claims of compromise. It knew 
the scope of his political philosophy, the bright- 
ness of his hope of American glory under the 
Union, the steady certainty of his trust that all 
would be well. Even if, like Webster, and 
Calhoun, and Clay, he saw the gathering storm, 
he thought — and he did not conceal his thought 
— that he had the confidence of his opponents, 
and could avert or control the tempest. Slav- 
ery knew that he could not. If he proudly 
declared the higher law, slavery knew that he 
did it, as Plato announced the Golden Rule, as 
a thinker, not as an actor; as a philosopher, 
not as the founder of a religion ready to be 
sealed with fire and blood. But this was the 



THE EULOGY. 137 

very spirit of slavery, and it did not see it to 
be his. 

In the midst of a speech which logically cut 
the ground from beneath the slave interest, and 
calmly foretold the blessing of the emancipation 
that was unavoidable, Mr. Seward would some- 
times turn and hold out his fingers for a pinch 
of snuff toward some Southern Senator, who, 
turning away his face, offered him the box. 
When the Senate adjourned, Mr. Seward would 
perhaps join the same colleague to stroll home 
along the Avenue as if they had been country 
lawyers coming from a court where they had 
been arguing a dry point of law. It showed 
how imperfectly he felt or how inadequately he 
measured the sullen intensity and relentless pur- 
pose of the spirit which dominated our politics, 
and would pause at nothing in its course. In a 
word, that spirit was essentially revolutionary, 
and Mr. Seward had not a revolutionary fibre in 
his being. Long afterward, when the movement 
of secession had begun, as he walked with a 
fellow-Senator to the Capitol on the morning of 
Washington's birthday, he saw on all sides the 
national flags fluttering in the sun, and exclaimed 
to his companion, with triumphant incredulity, 

18 



138 CHARLES SUMNER. 

"Look there! see those flags! and yet they talk 
of disunion!" 

Up to the moment of Mr. Sumxer's appear- 
ance in the Senate Mr. Seward had been the 
foremost anti-slavery leader in public life. But 
slavery, carefully studying him, believed, as I 
think, that he would compromise. That was the 
test. If he would compromise, he might annoy, 
but he was not to be feared. If he would com- 
promise, he might melodiously sing the glory of 
the Union at his pleasure. If he would com- 
promise, he would yield. If he were not as 
invincibly resolute as slavery, he was already 
conquered; and he was the leader of the North. 
There sat Seward in the Senate — yes, and there 
Webster had sat, there Clay had sat, with all 
their great and memorable service ; there in its 
presiding chair Millard Fillmore had sat; and 
over them all slavery had stalked straight on in 
its remorseless imperial career. And if, as Mr. 
Seward's most able eulogist mournfully remarks, 
he was permitted at last to leave public life 
" with fewer marks of recognition of his brilliant 
career than he would have had if he had been 
the most insignificant of our Presidents," may it 
not be that, without questioning his generous 



THE EULOGY. J39 

character, his lofty ability, and his illustrious 
service, there was a general feeling that in the 
last administration under which he served he 
had seemed in some degree to justify the instinct 
of slavery, that his will was not as sternly inex- 
orable as its own? 

I do not, of course, forget that compromise 
makes government possible, and that the Union 
was based upon it. "All government," says 
Burke, "is founded upon compromise and barter. 
• • • But," he adds, "in all fair dealing the 
thing bought must bear some proportion to the 
purchase paid. Kone will barter away the im- 
mediate jewel of the soul." So Sir James Mack- 
intosh said of Lord Somers, whom he described 
as the perfect model of a wise statesman in a 
free community, that "to be useful he submitted 
to compromise with the evil that he could not 
extirpate." But it is the instinct of the highest 
statesmanship to know when the jewel of which 
Burke speaks is demanded, and to resolve that 
at any cost it shall not be sold. John Pym had 
it when he carried up to the Lords the impeach- 
ment of Strafford. John Adams had it when he 
lifted the Continental Congress in his arms and 
hurled it over the irrevocable line of indcpend- 



140 CHARLES SUMMER. 

ence. Charles Sumner had it when, at the 
close of his first great speech in the Senate, he 
exclaimed, in the face of slavery in its highest 
seat, "By the Constitution which I have sworn 
to support, I am bound to disobey this act." 
Until that moment slavery had not seen in public 
life the man whom it truly feared. But now, 
amazed, incredulous, appalled, it felt that it had 
met its master. Here was a spirit as resolute 
and haughty as its own, with resources infinitely 
richer. Here at last was the North, the Ameri- 
can conscience, the American will — the heir of 
the traditions of English Magna Charta, and, 
far beyond them, of the old Swiss cantons high 
on the heaven-kissing Alps — the spirit that would 
not wince, nor compromise, nor bend, but which, 
like a cliff of adamant, said to the furious sea, 
"Here shall thy proud waves be stayed." 

Ten years afterward, when States were seced- 
ing and preparing to secede — when the reluct- 
ant mind of the North began to see that war 
was possible — when even many of Mr. Sum- 
ner's and Mr. Seward's party friends trembled 
in dismay, Mr. Seward ended his last speech in 
the Senate — a guarded plea for the Union — by 
concessions which amazed many of his most 



THE EULOGY. 141 

earnest friends. I know that he thought it the 
part of a wise statesmanship that he who was 
to be the head of the new administration 
should retain, if possible, the support of the 
opposition of the North by shunning- every- 
thing like menace, and by speaking in the 
most temperate and conciliatory tone. But his 
mournful concluding words, "I learned early 
from Jefferson that, in political affairs, we can- 
not always do what seems to us absolutely 
best," sounded at that time, and under those 
circumstances, like a mortal cry of defeat and 
.surrender. And at the very time that Mr. Sew- 
ard was speaking those words, Mr. Sumner 
was one evening surprised by a visit in Wash- 
ington from a large number of the most con- 
spicuous citizens of Boston, all of whom had 
been among his strongest and most positive 
political opponents. He welcomed them gravely, 
seeing that their purpose was very serious, and 
after a few moments, the most distinguished 
member of the party made an impassioned 
appeal to the Senator. "You know us all," he 
said, "as fellow-citizens of yours who have 
always and most strongly regretted and opposed 
your political course. But at this awful 



142 CHARLES SUMNER. 

moment, when the country hangs upon the 
edge of civil war — and what civil war means 
you know — we believe that there is one man 
only who can avert the threatening calamity, 
one man whom the North really trusts, and by 
whose counsels it will be guided. "We believe 
that you are that man. The North will listen 
to you and to no other, and we are here in 
the name of humanity and civilization, to 
implore you to save your country." The 
speaker was greatly affected, and after a 
moment Mr. Sumner said, "Sir, I am surprised 
that you attribute to me such influence. I will, , 
however, assume it. Be it so. What, then, 
is it that you would have me do?" ""We 
implore } r ou, Mr. Sumner, as you love your 
country and your God, to vote for the Critten- 
den compromise." " Sir," said Charles Sum- 
ister, rising to his lofty height, and never more 
Charles Sumner than in that moment, "if 
what you say is indeed true, and if at this 
moment the North trusts me, as you think, 
beyond all others, it is because the North 
knows that under no circumstances whatever 
would I compromise." 

It was precisely because slavery recognized 



THE EULOGY. I4.3 

this when he made his first important speech, 
and felt for the first time the immense force 
behind his words, that I call that speech so sig- 
nificant an event. I do not claim for Summ.il 
deeper convictions or a sterner will than those 
of many of his associates. But the Abolition- 
ists, however devoted and eloquent, were only 
private citizens and agitators who abjured politi- 
cal methods. They seemed to the supreme 
influence in the government a band of pestilent 
fanatics. But Charles Sumner in the Senate, 
Charles Sumner in the seat of Daniel Webster, 
saying that the Constitution forbade him to 
obey the Fugitive Slave Law, was not an indi- 
vidual; he w r as a representative man. ~No meet- 
ing of enthusiastic men and women in a school- 
house had sent him to the Senate, but the 
Legislature of a State. Nor that alone, for that 
Legislature had not sent him as the representa- 
tive of a party, but of an idea — an idea which 
had been powerful enough to hold its friends 
close together through a contest of three 
months, and at last defeating the influences 
which had so long controlled unquestioned the 
politics of the State, had lifted into the Senate a 
man pledged only to cry Delenda est Carthago, 



14:4: CHARLES SUMNER. 

and who, by the law of his mental and moral 
structure, could no more compromise the prin- 
ciple at stake than he could tell a lie. Still 
farther, slavery heard the young Senator proudly 
assert that the Constitution did not recognize 
slavery, except in the slave-trade clause, whose 
force was long since spent; that the clause upon 
which the Fugitive Law was grounded was a 
mere compact conferring no power, and that 
every detail of the process provided was fla- 
grantly and palpably unconstitutional. Slavery, 
he insisted, was sectional, liberty was national; 
and throwing this popular cry to the country, 
he irradiated his position with so splendid an 
illumination of illustration, precedent, argument, 
appeal, that it shone all over the land. How 
like a sunrise it strengthened and stimulated and 
inspired the North! It furnished the quiver of a 
thousand orators and newspapers, and was an 
exhaustless treasury of resources for the debate. 
Above all it satisfied men bred in reverence of 
law that their duty as citizens was coincident 
with the dictates of their consciences, and that 
the Constitution justified them in withstanding 
the statute which their souls loathed. 

This was the very service that the country 



THE EULOGY. 145 

needed at that time; and that no dramatic effect 
should be wanting, as Henry Clay had left the 
Senate for the last time on the day that Mr. 
Summer was sworn in, so, as he was making his 
first great jilea for justice under the Constitu- 
tion, his predecessor, Daniel Webster, then Sec- 
retary of State, came into the Chamber, and also 
for the last time. I know no more impressive 
scene. There is the old Senator, then the chief 
figure in America, who, a year before, on the 7th 
of March, had made his last speech supporting 
the policy of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and against 
the "Wilmot Proviso. Worn, wasted, sad, with 
powers so great and public service so renowned, 
the Olympian man who had sought so long, so 
ably, so vainly, to placate the implacable, his 
seventy years ending in baffled hopes and bitter 
disappointment and a broken heart, gazed with 
those eyes of depthless melancholy upon his 
successor. And here stands that successor, with 
the light of spotless youth upon his face, tower- 
ing, dauntless, radiant; the indomitable Puritan, 
speaking as a lawyer, a statesman, and a man, 
not for his State alone, nor for his country only, 
but for human rights everywhere and always, 
forecasting the future, heralding the new Amer- 



19 



146 CHARLES SUMNER. 

ica. As Webster looked and listened, did he 
recall the words of that younger man seven 
years before in Faneuil Hall, when he prayed 
the party that Webster led to declare for eman- 
cipation? Did he remember the impassioned 
appeal to himself, that as he had justly earned 
the title of Defender of the Constitution, so now 
he should devote his marvellous powers to the 
overthrow of slavery, and thereby win a nobler 
name? Alas! It was demanding dawn of the 
sunset! It was beseeching yesterday to return 
to-morrow. It was imploring Daniel Webster to 
be Charles Sumxer. USTo, fellow-citizens, in 
that appeal Sumxer forecast his own glory. "As- 
sume, then," cried he, "these unperformed duties. 
The aged shall bear witness to you; the young 
shall kindle with rapture as they repeat the 
name of Webster; the large company of the ran- 
somed shall teach their children and their chil- 
dren's children to the latest generation to call 
you blessed, and you shall have yet another 
title, never to be forgotten on earth or in 
heaven, Defender of Humanity." 

I dwell upon this first great speech of Mr. 
Sumxer's in the Senate, because it illustrates 
his own public qualities and character, his aims 



THE EULOGY. -^7 

and his methods. He began to take an official 
part in affairs when all questions were deter- 
mined by a single interest, a single policy, and 
all issues grew out of that. His nature was so 
transparent and simple, and the character of his 
relation to his time so evident, that there is 
but one story to tell. All his greater speeches 
upon domestic topics after that of August, 
1852, were but amplifications of the thine.' 
The power that he had defied did not relax, 
but redoubled its efforts to subdue the country 
to its will, and every new attempt found Sum- 
mer with more practised powers, with more 
comprehensive resources, ready and eager for 
the battle. For the whole of his active career, 
before, during, and after the war, his work was 
substantially the same. He was essentially an 
orator and a moral reformer, and with unsur- 
passed earnestness of appeal, emphasized from 
first to last by the incalculable weight of his 
commanding character, his work was to rouse, 
and kindle, and inspire the public opinion of the 
country to his own uncompromising hostility to 
slavery. In this crusade he traversed the land, 
as it were, by his speeches, a new Peter the 
Hermit, and by his sincerity, his unconquerable 



148 CHARLES SUMNER. 

zeal, his affluent learning, making history, and 
literature, and art, tributary to his purpose, he 
entered the houses, and hearts, and minds of 
the people of the Northern States, and fanned 
the flame of a holy hatred of the intolerable 
and audacious wrong. It was indispensable to 
this work that he should not be able to admit 
any qualification of its absorbing necessity, or 
any abatement of the urgency with which it 
must be pursued. Once, in later days, when I 
argued with him that opponents might be sin- 
cere, and that there was some reason on the 
other side, he thundered in reply, "Upon such 
a question there is no other side!" The time 
required such a leader — a man who did not 
believe that there was another side to the 
question; who would treat difference of opinion 
almost as moral delinquency ; and the hour 
found the man in Sumner. 

For see what the leadership of opinion in this 
country then demanded. In the first place, and 
for the reasons I have mentioned — the instinct, 
traditions, and habits of the dominant race in 
our civilization — such a leader must be a man 
who showed that the great principles of liberty, 
but of liberty under law, of what we call regu- 



THE EULOGY. 149 

lated liberty, were on his side; whose familiarity 
with the Constitution and with constitutional 
interpretation, and whose standing among law- 
yers who dealt with the comprehensive spirit 
and purpose of the law, were recognized and 
commanding, so that, instructed by him, the 
farmer in the field, the mechanic in the shop, 
the traveller by the way — all law-loving Ameri- 
cans everywhere, could maintain the contest 
with their neighbors point by point upon the 
letter of the Constitution, and show, or think 
they showed, that the supreme law in its inten- 
tion, in the purpose of its authors, by the 
unquestionable witness of the time, demanded an 
interpretation and a statute in favor of liberty. 
Then, in the second place, this leader must be 
identified with a political party, for the same 
instinct which seeks the law and leans upon 
precedent acts through the organization of par- 
ties. The Free-soil sentiment that sent Sumnek 
to the Senate was the real creative force in our 
politics at that time. It had a distinct organiza- 
tion in several States. It had nominated Presi- 
dential candidates at Buffalo; and although the 
"Whig and Democratic were still the great par- 
ties, the Free-soil principle was necessarily the 



150 CHARLES SUMMER. 

nucleus around which a new and truly national 
party must presently gather. In 1852 the com- 
mon enemy silenced the Whig party, which 
almost instantly dissolved as a powerful element 
in politics, and the Republican party arose. No 
man had done more to form the opinion and 
deepen the conviction from which it sprang than 
Sumner; no man accepted its aid with more 
alacrity, or saw more clearly its immense oppor- 
tunity. As early as September, 1854, he declared 
in the State Convention of his political friends, 
"As Republicans we go forth to encounter the 
oligarchs of slavery"; and eighteen years after- 
ward, in warning the party against what he 
thought to be a fatal course, he said that he had 
been one of the straitest of the sect, who had 
never failed to sustain its candidates or to ad- 
vance its principles. He was indeed one of its 
fathers. No citizen who has acted with that 
party will question the greatness of his service 
to it ; no citizen who opposed that party will 
deny it. The personal assault upon him in the 
Senate, following his prodigious defence of the 
Republican position and policy, and soon after 
the first national nominations of the party, made 
him throughout the inspiring summer of 1856, 



THE EULOGY. ^51 

to the imagination of the twelve hundred thou- 
sand men who voted for its candidates, the very 
type and illustration of their hope and purpose. 
Nothing less than such humanity in the national 
policy and such lofty character in public life as 
were expressed by the name of Charles Sum- 
ner was the aim of the great political awakening 
of that time. The rank and file of the party, to 
borrow a military phrase, dressed upon Sumner; 
and long afterward, when party differences had 
arisen, I am sure that I spoke for the great 
body of his political associates when I said to 
one who indignantly regretted his course, that 
while at that time and under those circumstances 
we could not approve his judgment, yet there 
were thousands and thousands of men who 
would be startled and confused to find them- 
selves marching in a political campaign out of 
step with Charles Sumner. Thus he satisfied 
the second imperative condition of leadership of 
which I speak as a conspicuous and decided 
party chief. 

But there were certain modifications of these 
conditions essential to the position, and these 
also were found in Sumner. Such was the 
felicity of his career that even his defects of 



152 CHARLES SUMNER. 

constitution served to equip him more fully for 
his task. Thus, while it was indispensable under 
the circumstances that he should be a constitu- 
tional and international lawyer, it was no less 
essential that his mind should deal more with 
principles than with details, and with the spirit 
rather than the letter. He saw so clearly the 
great end to be achieved that he seemed some- 
times almost to assume the means. Like an 
Alpine guide leading his company of travellers 
toward the pure and awful heights, with his eye 
fixed upon their celestial beauty, and his soul 
breathing an 

" Ampler ether, a diviner air," 

he moved straight on, disdaining obstacles that 
would have perplexed a guide less absolutely 
absorbed, and who by moments of doubt and 
hesitation would have imperilled everything. 

Thus his legal mind, in the pursuit of a 
moral end, had sometimes what I may call a 
happy lack of logic; for it enabled him to 
throw the whole force of his nature unreserv- 
edly upon a good purpose. Sure of his end, 
and that everything ought to make for it, he 
felt that everything did make for it. For 



THE EULOGY. J 53 

instance, his first great public oration upon the 
"True Grandeur of Nations," was a most pow- 
erful presentation of the glory and beauty of 
peace, and a mighly denunciation of the hor- 
rors and wrongs of war. It was an intrepid 
and impressive discourse, and its influence will 
be deep and lasting. But it overstated its own 
case. It exposed the citizen soldier not only to 
ridicule, but to moral aversion. And yet the 
young men who sat in martial array before the 
orator had not submitted to military discipline 
merely for the splendor of a parade, but that 
in the solemn and exigent hour they might the 
more effectively defend the public safety and 
private honor, the school and the hospital, and 
social order itself, the only guarantee of peace, 
and all this not at the arbitrary command of 
their own will, but by the lawful and consid- 
ered word of the civil power. What is military 
force which he derided but, in the last resort, 
the law which he revered, in execution? As a 
friend asked him, Are the judgments of Story 
and of Shaw advice merely? Do they not, if 
need be, command every bayonet in the State? 
Is force wrong, and must the policeman not 

only be prohibited from carrying a pistol or a 

20 



154: CHARLES SUMMER, 

club, but must he be forbidden to lay his hand 
upon the thief in the act to compel him to the 
station? The young citizen soldiers who sat 
before the orator were simply the ultimate 
police. To decry to them with resounding- and 
affluent power the practice which covered war 
with a false lustre was a noble service, but to 
do it in a way that would forbid the just and 
lawful punishment of a murderer disclosed a 
defective logic. His argument logically seemed 
to imply that he was an absolute non-resistant. 
But he was not so; nor was there any incon- 
sistency in his firm support of the war sixteen 
years later. In the instances that I mention, he 
used arguments that were two-edged swords, 
apt to wound the wielder as well as the enemy. 
And so he sometimes adopted propositions of 
constitutional or international law which led 
straight to his moral end, but which would 
hardly have endured the legal microscope. Yet 
he maintained them with such fervor of con- 
viction, such an array of precedent, such ampli- 
tude of illustration, that to the great popular 
mind, morally exalted like his own, his state- 
ments had the majesty and the conclusiveness 
of demonstrations. 



THE EULOGY. I55 

And this, again, was what the time needed. 
The debate was essentially, although under the 
forms of law, revolutionary. It aimed at the 
displacement not only of an administration, but 
of a theory of the government, and of tradi- 
tional usage that did not mean to yield with- 
out a struggle. It required, therefore, not the 
judicially logical mind, nor the fine touch of 
casuistry that splits, and halts, and defers until 
the cause is lost, but the mind so absolutely 
alive with the idea and fixed upon the end that 
it compels the means. John Pym was resolved 
that Strafford should be impeached, and he 
found the law for it. Charles Summer was 
resolved that slavery should fall, and he found 
the Constitution for it. When the great debate 
ended, and there was the moment of dread 
silence before the outburst of civil war, the 
legal casuistry which had found the terrors of 
the Fugitive Slave Law constitutional could see 
no power in the Constitution to coerce States, 
Charles Stjmxer, who had found in the Consti- 
tution no authority for slave-hunting, answered 
the furious cannonade at Fort Sumter by declar- 
ing that slavery had legally destroyed itself, and 
by demanding immediate emancipation. 



156 CHARLES SUMNER. 

And as the crisis in which Sumner lived 
required that, in a leader, the qualities of a 
lawyer should be modified by those of the pa- 
triot and the moralist, so it demanded that the 
party man should be more than a partisan. He 
never forgot that a party is a means, not an 
end. He knew the joy and the power of asso- 
ciation — no man better. He knew the history 
of parties everywhere — in Greece and Rome, 
in England and France, and in our own earlier 
day ; and he knew how insensibly a party 
comes to resemble an army, and an army to 
stand for the country and cause which it has 
defended. But he knew above all that parties 
are kept pure and useful only by the resolute 
independence of their members, and that those 
leaders whom, from their lofty principle and 
uncompromising qualities, parties do not care to 
nominate, are the very leaders who make par- 
ties able to elect their candidates. The Repub- 
lican party was organized to withstand slavery 
when slavery dared all. It needed, therefore, 
one great leader at least who was not merely a 
partisan; who did not work for party ends but 
for the ends of the party. It needed a man 
absorbed and mastered by hostility to slavery; 



THE EULOGY. 157 

a man of one idea, like Columbus, with his 
whole soul trembling ever to the west, weary- 
ing courts, and kings, and councils, with his 
single, incessant and importunate plea, until he 
sailed over the horizon and gave a lew World 
to the Old; a man of one idea, like Luther, 
pleading his private conscience against the 
ancient hierarchy, and giving both worlds relig- 
ious liberty. Yes, a man of one idea. This 
was what the time demanded in public and 
party life, and this it found in Charles Sum- 
ner; not an anti-slavery man only, but a man 
in whose soul, for thirty years, the sigh of the 
slave never ceased, and whose dying words 
were a prayer to save the bill that made that 
slave wholly an equal citizen. 

"When the Republican party came into power 
it was forced to conduct a war in which the 
very same qualities were demanded. The public 
mind needed constantly to be roused and sus- 
tained by the truuq:>et-note of an ever higher 
endeavor, and from no leader did it hear that 
tone more steadily and clearly than from Sum- 
ner. When the most radical, which in such a 
moment is the wisest, policy came to be dis- 
cussed in detailed measures, he had already 



158 CHARLES SUMNER. 

robbed it of its terrors by making it familiar. 
While Congress declared by a vote almost unani- 
mous that emancipation was not a purpose or 
an element of the war, Sumner proclaimed to 
the country that slavery was perpetual war, and 
that emancipation only was peace. Like Nelson 
in the battle of the Baltic — when the admiral 
signaled to stop fighting he put the glass to his 
blind eye and shouted, "I don't see the admiral's 
signal; nail my own colors to the mast for closer 
battle ! " As before the war, so while it raged, 
he felt the imperial necessity of the conclusion 
so strongly that he made all arguments serve, 
and forced all facts into line. He was alive 
with the truth that Dryden nobly expresses: "I 
have heard, indeed, of some virtuous persons 
who have ended unfortunately, but never of 
any virtuous nation. Providence is engaged too 
deeply when the cause becomes so general." 
Mr. Lincoln, who was a natural diplomatist, for- 
tunately understood Mr. Sumner. The Presi- 
dent knew as well as the Senator that the war 
sprang from slavery. He had already said that 
the house of the Union divided against itself 
could not stand. He knew as well as Sumner 
that slavery must be smitten. But he knew 



THE EULOGY. ^59 

also that in his position he could not smite until 
public opinion lifted his arm. To stimulate that 
opinion, therefore, was the most precious service 
to the President, to the country, and the world. 
Thus it was not the appeal to Lincoln, it was 
the appeal to public opinion, that was demanded. 
It was not Sumner's direct but his reflected 
light that was so useful. And when the Presi- 
dent at last raised his arm— for he pulled no 
unripe fruit, and he did nothing until he thought 
the time had fully come— he knew that the 
country was ready, and that no man more than 
Sumner had made it so. When the Assistant 
Secretary of State carried the engrossed copy of 
the Emancipation Proclamation to Mr. Lincoln 
to sign, he had been shaking hands all the 
morning, so that his writing was unsteady. He 
looked^at it for a moment with his sadly humor- 
ous smile, and then said, w When people see that 
shaky signature they will say, ? See how uncer- 
tain he was.' But I was never surer of any- 
thing in my life." 

But while Sumner righteously stimulated pub- 
lic opinion during the war, not less on one mem- 
orable occasion did he righteously moderate it. 
I once ventured to ask Mr. Seward what in his 



160 CHARLES SUMNER. 

judgment was the darkest hour of the Avar. He 
answered instantly, " The time that elapsed 
between my informally sending to Lord Lyons 
a draft of my reply in the Trent case and my 
hearing from him that it would be satisfactory." 
He thought it the darkest hour, because he 
knew that in that reply he had made the utmost 
concession that public opinion would tolerate, 
and if it were not satisfactory, nothing remained 
but war with England — a war which Mr. Adams 
tells us, he thinks that the British government 
expected, and for which it had already issued 
naval instructions. Mr. Sumner, who was most 
friendly with Mr. Seward, was chairman of the 
Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, and, 
next to his constant and inspiring consciousness 
that he was a Senator of Massachusetts, his 
position as the head of that committee was the 
pride and glory of his official life. Few men in 
the country have ever been so amply fitted for 
it as he. From his youth he had been a student 
of international law. He was master of its his- 
tory and literature. It was his hope — surely a 
noble ambition — to contribute to it something 
that might still further humanize the comity of 
nations. He was familiar with the current poli- 



THE EULOGY. Id 

tics of the world, and he personally knew most 
of the distinguished foreign statesmen of his 
time. Above all, he brought to his chair the 
lofty conviction expressed by another master of 
international law, that " the same rules of morality 
which hold together men in families, and which 
form families into commonwealths, also link 
together those commonwealths as members of 
the great society of mankind." He was very 
proud of that chairmanship; and when, in the 
spring of 1871, upon the annual renewal of the 
committees of the Senate, his Eepublican col- 
leagues decided not to restore him to his chair, 
he felt degraded and humiliated before the coun- 
try and foreign powers. He had held it for ten 
years. His party was still in the ascendant. 
His qualifications were undeniable. And he felt 
that the refusal to restore him implied some 
deep distrust or dissatisfaction, for which, what- 
ever good reasons existed, none but the pleas- 
ure of the Senate has yet been given to the 
country. 

While he was still chairman, and at a critical 
moment, the seizure of the Trent was hailed 
with frantic applause. Nothing seemed less likely 
than that an administration could stand which 



2L 



162 CHAELES SUMNER. 

should restore the prisoners, and Mr. Seward's 
letter was one of the ablest and most skilful 
that he ever wrote. Mr. Adams says frankly 
that in his judgment it saved the unity of the 
nation. But the impressive fact of the moment 
was the acquiescence of the country in the sur- 
render, and that in great degree was due to the 
conclusive demonstration made by Mr. Sumner 
that fidelity to our own principles required the 
surrender. It was precisely one of the occasions 
when his value as a public man was plainly evi- 
dent. From the crowded diplomatic gallery in 
the Senate, attentive Europe looked and listened. 
His words were weighed one by one by men 
whom sympathy with his cause did not seduce, 
nor a too susceptible imagination betray, and who 
acknowledged when he ended, not only that the 
nation had escaped war and that the action of 
the administration had been vindicated, but that 
the renown of the country had been raised by 
the clear and luminous statement of its humane 
and peaceful traditions of neutrality. "Until 
to-day," said one of the most accomplished of 
those diplomatists, " I have considered Mr. Sum- 
ner a doctrinaire ; henceforth I recognize him as 
a statesman." He had silenced England by her 



THE EULOGY. ip 

historic self. He had justified America by her 
own honorable precedent. The country knew 
that he spoke from the fullest knowledge, and 
with the loftiest American and humane purpose, 
and his service in promoting national acquies- 
cence in the surrender of the captives was as 
characteristic as in nerving the public mind to 
demand emancipation. 

But while Mr. Sumner's public career was 
chiefly a relentless warfare with slavery, it was 
only because slavery was the present and pal- 
pable form of that injustice with which his 
nature was at war. The spring of his public 
life was that overpowering love of peace and 
justice and equality which spoke equally in his 
early Prison Discipline debates; in the Fourth 
of July oration in Boston; in his literary 
addresses; in the powerful anti-slavery speeches 
in the Senate; in his advocacy of emancipation as 
the true policy of the war, and of equal civil and 
political rights as the guarantee of its results; 
in his Senatorial efforts to establish arbitration; 
in his condemnation of privateering, prize-money, 
and letters of marque; in his arraignment of 
Great Britain for a policy which favored slavery ; 
in his unflinching persistence for the Civil Eights 



164 CHARLES SUMMER. 

Bill; in his last great protest against the annex- 
ation of San Domingo, and his denunciation of 
what he thought a cruel and un-American hos- 
tility to the republic of Hayti. He was a born 
warrior with public injustice. 

Many public men permit their hostility to a 
wrong to be modified in its expression by per- 
sonal feeling, and to reflect that good men, from 
the influence of birth and training, may sometimes 
support a wrong system. But Sumner saw in 
his opponents not persons, but a cause, and, like 
Socrates in the battle he smote to the death, but 
with no personal hostility. In turn he was so 
identified with his own cause, that he seemed to 
his opponents to be the very spirit with which 
they contended, — visible, aggressive, arrogant. 
His tone in debate when he arraigned slavery, 
although he arraigned slavery alone, was so 
unsparing that all his supporters felt themselves 
to be personally insulted. After the war began 
I heard his speech in the Senate for the expulsion 
of Mr. Bright, of Indiana, for commerce with the 
enemy. It was a lash of scorpions. Mr. Bright 
sat in his place, pale and livid by turns, and 
gazing at Mr. Sumner as if he could scarce 
restrain himself from springing at his throat. 



THE EULOGY. \ (35 

Yet when the orator shook his lifted finger at his 
colleague, and hurled at him his scathing sen- 
tences, it was not the man that he saw before him: 
he saw only the rebellion, only slavery in arms, 
with Catalinian audacity proudly thrusting itself 
into the Capitol, and daring to sit in the very 
Senate-chamber. But Mr. Sumner's attitude and 
tone that day, with a vast majority at his side, 
with a friendly army in the city, were no bolder, 
no more resolutely defiant, than when he stood in 
the same chamber demanding the expulsion of 
slavery from the statute-book, while the majority 
of his colleagues would fain have silenced him, 
and the city was a camp of his enemies. 

It was often said that it was impossible 
he should know the peril of his position. It 
was not that. He did know it. But he .saw 
and feared a greater j^eril — that of not doino* 
his duty. He often stood practically alone 
among responsible public men. The spirit which 
begged Abraham Lincoln to strike out of his 
Springfield speech, in 1858, the words "a house 
divided against itself cannot stand," a request 
which Mr. Lincoln said that he would carefully 
consider, and having considered, spoke the 
words, and went straight on to the Presidency 



166 CHARLES SUMNER. 

and a glorious renown — this spirit censured 
Sumneu's fanaticism, his devotion to one idea; 
derided his rhetoric, his false taste, his want of 
logic; ridiculed his want of tact, his ignorance 
of men, his visionary views, his impracticabil- 
ity. Indeed, there were times when it almost 
seemed that friends joined with foes to shear 
Samson's flowing hair while Samson was smit- 
ing the Philistines. If friends remonstrated he 
replied, "I am a public servant. I am a senti- 
nel of my country. I must cry 'halt,' though 
it be only a shadow that passes, and not bring 
my piece to a rest until I know who goes 
there." It was an ideal vigilance — an ideal 
sense of duty. I grant it. He was an ideal 
character. He loved duty more than friend- 
ship, and he had that supreme quality of man- 
hood, the power to go alone. I am not anxious 
to call him a statesman, but he seems to have 
measured more accurately than others the real 
forces of his time. Miss Martineau, in the 
remarkable paper published at the beginning of 
the war, says that every public man in the 
country with whom she talked, agreed that 
silence upon slavery was the sole condition of 
preserving the Union. Sumner was the man 



THE EULOGY. igir 

who saw that silence would make the Union 
only the stately tomb of liberty; and that 
speech, constant, unsparing, unshrinking- 
speech ringing over a cowering land like an 
alarm-bell at midnight-was the only salvation 
of the Union as the home of freedom. 

If now for a moment we turn to survey that 
public career, extending over the thirty stormi- 
est years of our history, the one clear, con- 
spicuous fact that appears in it, after the 
single devotion to one end, is that Mr. Sum- 
ner lived to see that end accomplished. He 
began by urging the Whig party to raise the 
anti-slavery standard. It refused. He left the 
party, and presently it perished. He entered 
the Senate denouncing slavery in a manner 
that roused and strengthened the public mind 
for the contest that soon began. With the 
first gun of the war he demanded emancipa- 
tion as the way of victory; and when victory 
with emancipation came, he advocated equal 
suffrage as the security of liberty. What pub- 
lic man has seen more glorious fulfilments of 
his aims and efforts? He did not, indeed, orijri- 
nate the laws that enacted the results, but he 
developed the spirit and the conviction that 



168 CHARLES SUMNER. 

made the results possible. "William the Third 
won few battles, but he gained his cause; 
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration, but 
John Adams is the hero of American inde- 
pendence. Sumner was more a moral reformer 
than a statesman, and to a surprising degree 
events were his allies. But no man of our 
first great period, not Otis or Patrick Henry, 
nor Jefferson or Adams, nor Hamilton or Jay, 
is surer of his place, than in the second great 
period Charles Sumner is sure of his. 

As his career drew to an end, events occurred 
without which his life would not have been 
wholly complete, and the most signal illustra- 
tion of the power of personal character in poli- 
tics would have been lost. He was, as I have 
said, a party man. Although always in advance, 
and by his genius a moral leader, he had yet 
always worked with and by his party. But as 
the main objects of his political activity were 
virtually accomplished, he came to believe that 
his party, reckless in absolute triumph, was 
ceasing to represent that high and generous 
patriotism to which his life was consecrated, 
that its moral tone was sensibly declining, that 
it defended policies hostile to public faith and 



THE EULOGY. !(# 

human rights, trusting leaders who should not 
be trusted, and tolerating practices that honest 
men should spurn. Believing that his party was 
forfeiting the confidence of the country, he rea- 
soned with it and appealed to it, as more than 
twenty years before he had reasoned with the 
Whig party in Faneuil Hall. His hope was by 
his speeches on the San Domingo treaty and 
the French arms and the Presidential nomina- 
tion to shake what he thought to be the fatal 
apathy of the party, and to stimulate it once 
more to resume its leadership of the conscience 
and the patriotism of the country. It was my 
fortune to see him constantly and intimately 
during those days, to know the persuasions and 
flatteries lavished upon him to induce him to 
declare openly against the party, and his resolu- 
tion not to leave it until he had exhausted 
every argument and prayer, and conscience for- 
bade him to remain. That summons came, in 
his judgment, when a nomination was made 
which seemed to him the conclusive proof of a 
fatal party infatuation. "Anything else," he 
said to me, vehemently, a hundred times— "any 
other candidacy I can support, and it would 
save the party and the country." The nomina- 

22 



170 



CHARLES SUMNER. 



tion was made. He did not hesitate. He was 
sixty years old; smitten with sorrows that were 
not known; suffering at times acute agony from 
the disease of which he died; his heart heavy 
with the fierce strife of a generation, and longing 
for repose. But the familiar challenge of duty 
found him alert and watchful at his post, and 
he advanced without a doubt or a fear to what 
was undoubtedly the greatest trial of his life. 

The anti-slavery contest, indeed, had closed 
many a door and many a heart against him; it 
had exposed him to the sneer, the hate, the 
ridicule, of opposition; it had threatened his life 
and assailed his person. But the great issue 
was clearly drawn; his whole being was stirred 
to its depths; he was in the bloom of youth, 
the pride of strength; history and reason, the 
human heart and the human conscience, were 
his immortal allies, and around him were the 
vast, increasing hosts of liberty; the men whose 
counsels he approved; the friends of his heart; 
the multitude that thought him only too eager 
for unquestionable right; the prayer of free men 
and women sustaining, inspiring, blessing him. 
But here was another scene, a far fiercer trial. 
His old companions in the Free-soil days, the 



THE EULOGY. 171 

great abolition leaders, most of his warmest per- 
sonal friends, the great body of the party whom 
his words had inspired, looked at him with sor- 
rowful surprise. Ah! no one who did not know 
that proud and tender heart, trusting, simple, 
almost credulous as that of a boy, could know 
how sore the trial was. He stood, among his 
oldest friends, virtually alone; with inexpressible 
pain they parted, each to his own duty. "Are 
you willing," I said to him one day, when he 
had passionately implored me to agree with him 
— and I should have been unworthy his friend- 
ship had I been silent — "is Charles Sumner 
willing at this time, and in the circumstances of 
to-day, to intrust the colored race in this coun- 
try, with all their rights, their liberty newly won 
and yet flexile and nascent, to a party, however 
fair its profession, which comprises all who have 
hated and despised the negro? The slave of 
yesterday in Alabama, in Carolina, in Mississippi, 
will his heart leap with joy or droop dismayed 
when he knows that Charles Sumner has 
given his great name as a club to smite the 
party that gave him and his children their 
liberty?" The tears started to his eyes, that 
good gray head bowed down, but he answered, 



172 CHARLES SUMNER. 

sadly, "I must do my duty." And he did it. 
He saw the proud, triumphant party that he had 
led so often, men and women whom his heart 
loved, the trusted friends of a life, the sympathy 
and confidence and admiration upon which, on 
his great days and after his resounding words, 
he had been joyfully accustomed to lean — he 
saw all these depart, and he turned to go alone 
and do his duty. 

Yet, great as was his sorrow, still greater, as 
I believe, was his content in doing that duty. 
His State, indeed, could not follow him. For 
the first time in his life, he went one way, and 
Massachusetts went the other. But Massachu- 
setts was as true to her convictions of duty in 
that hour as he was to his own. It was her 
profound belief that the result he sought would 
be perilous if not fatal to the welfare of the 
country. But the inspiring moral of these events 
is this, that while deploring his judgment in this 
single case, and while, later, the Legislature, 
misconceiving his noble and humane purpose, 
censured him for the resolutions which the people 
of the State did not understand, and which they 
believed, most unjustly to him, to be somehow a 
wrong to the precious dead, the flower of a 



THE EULOGY. ^73 

thousand homes-yet, despite all this, the great 
heart of Massachusetts never swerved from 
Chaeles Sumneb. It was grieved and amazed, 
and could not forego its own duty because he 
saw another. But I know that when in that 
year I spoke in rural Massachusetts, whether in 
public or in private, to those who, with me, 
could not follow him, nothing that I said was 
heard with more sympathy and applause than 
my declaration of undying honor and gratitude 
to him. "I seem to lean on the great heart of 
Massachusetts," he said, in the bitterest hour of 
the conflict of his life. And it never betrayed 
him. In that heart not the least suspicion of a 
mean or selfish motive ever clouded his image- 
not a doubt of his absolute fidelity to his con- 
science disturbed its faith; and had he died a 
year ago, while yet the censure of the Legisla- 
ture was unrepealed, his body would have been 
received by you with the same affectionate rever- 
ence; here, and in Faneuil Hall, and at the 
State-house, all honor that boundless gratitude 
and admiration could lavish would have been 
poured forth, and yonder in Mount Auburn he 
would have been laid to rest with the same 
immense tenderness of sorrow. 



174: CHARLES SUMNER. 

This is the great victory, the great lesson, 
the great legacy of his life, that the fidelity of 
a public man to conscience, not to party, is 
rewarded with the sincercst popular love and 
confidence. What an inspiration to every youth 
longing with generous ambition to enter the 
great arena of the State, that he must heed first 
and always the divine voice in his own soul, if 
he would be sure of the sweet voices of good 
fame! Living, how Sumner served us! and 
dying, at this moment how he serves us still! 
In a time when politics seem peculiarly mean 
and selfish and corrupt, when there is a general 
vague apprehension that the very moral founda- 
tions of the national character are loosened, 
when good men are painfully anxious to know 
whether the heart of the people is hardened, 
Charles Sumner dies; and the universality and 
sincerity of sorrow, such as the death of no 
man left living among us could awaken, show 
how true, how sound, how generous, is still the 
heart of the American people. This is the dying 
service of Charles Sumner, a revelation which 
inspires every American to bind his shining 
example ajs a frontlet between the eyes, and 



THE EULOGY. 175 

never again to despair of the higher and more 
glorious destiny of his country. 

And of that destiny what a foreshowing was 
he! In that beautiful home at the sunny and 
leafy corner of the national city, where he lived 
among books, and pictures, and noble friend- 
ships, and lofty thoughts— the home to which 
he returned at the close of each day in the 
Senate, and to which the wise and good from 
every land naturally came— how the stately, and 
gracious, and all-accomplished man seemed the 
very personification of that new union for which 
he had so manfully striven, and whose coming 
his dying eyes beheld — the union of ever wider 
liberty and juster law, the America of compre- 
hensive intelligence, and of moral power! For 
that he stands ; up to that, his imperishable 
memory, like the words of his living lips, for- 
ever lifts us — lifts us to his own great faith in 
America and in man. Suddenly from his strong 
hand — my father, my father, the chariot of 
Israel, and the horsemen thereof! — the banner 
falls. Be it ours to grasp it and carry it still 
forward, still higher ! Our work is not his 
work, but it can be well done only in his 
spirit. And as in the heroic legend of your 



176 CHARLES SUMNER. 

western valley the men of Hadley, faltering in 
the fierce shock of Indian battle, suddenly saw 
at their head the lofty form of an unknown 
captain, with white hair streaming on the wind, 
by his triumphant mien strengthening their 
hearts and leading them to victory, so, men 
and women of Massachusetts, of America, if in 
that national conflict already begun, as vast and 
vital as the struggle of his life, the contest 
which is beyond that of any party, or policy, 
or measure — the contest for conscience, intelli- 
gence and morality as the supreme power in 
our politics and the sole salvation of America — 
you should falter or fail, suddenly your hearts 
shall see once more the towering form, shall 
hear again the inspiring voice, shall be exalted 
anew with the moral energy and faith of 
Charles Sumner, and the victories of his 
immortal example shall transcend the triumphs 
of his life. 



APPENDIX. 



23 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ, 

DELIVERED BY INVITATION OF THE 

CITY GOVERNMENT OF BOSTON, 

IN THE 

BOSTON MUSIC HALL, 

APRIL 29, 1874. 



EULOGY. 



When the news went forth, "Charles Sumner is 
dead," a tremor of strange emotion was felt all over 
the land. It was as if a magnificent star, a star 
unlike all others, which the living generation had been 
wont to behold fixed and immovable above their 
heads, had all at once disappeared from the sky, and 
the people stared into the great void darkened by the 
sudden absence of the familiar light. 

On the 16th of March a funeral procession passed 
through the streets of Boston. Uncounted thousands 
of men, women and children had assembled to see it 
pass. No uncommon pageant had attracted them; no 
military parade with glittering uniforms and gay ban- 
ners ; no pompous array of dignitaries in official robes ; 
nothing but carriages and a hearse with a coffin, and 
in it the corpse of Charles Sumner. But there they 
stood — a multitude immeasurable to the eye, rich and 
poor, white and black, old and young— in grave and 
mournful silence, to bid a last sad farewell to him 
who was being borne to his grave. And every breeze 
from every point of the compass came loaded with a 
sigh of sorrow. Indeed, there was not a city or town 
in this great republic which would not have sur- 
rounded that funeral procession with the same spectacle 



182 CHARLES SUMNER. 

of a profound and universal sense of great bereave- 
ment. 

Was it love? Was it gratitude for the services ren- 
dered to the people ? Was it the baffled expectation of 
greater service still to come? Was it admiration of 
his talents or his virtues that inspired so general an 
emotion of sorrow? 

He had stood aloof from the multitude ; the friend- 
ship of his heart had been given to but few ; to the 
many he had appeared distant, self-satisfied and cold. 
His public life had been full of bitter conflicts. No 
man had aroused against himself fiercer animosities. 
Although warmly recognized by many, the public ser- 
vices of no man had been more acrimoniously ques- 
tioned by opponents. No statesman's motives, qualities 
of heart and mind, wisdom and character, except his 
integrity, had been the subject of more heated contro- 
versy ; and yet, when sudden death snatched him from 
us, friend and foe bowed their heads alike. 

Every patriotic citizen felt poorer than the day 
before. Every true American heart trembled with the 
apprehension that the republic had lost something it 
could ill spare. 

Even from far distant lands, across the ocean, voices 
came, mingling their sympathetic grief with our own. 

When you, Mr. Mayor, in the name of the City 
Government of Boston, invited me to interpret that 
which millions think and feel, I thanked you for the 
proud privilege you had conferred upon me, and the 
invitation appealed so irresistibly to my friendship for 
the man we had lost, that I could not decline it. 



EULOGY BY CARL SCIIURZ. 183 

And yet, the thought struck me that you might 
have prepared a greater triumph to his memory, had 
you summoned not me, his friend, but one of those 
who had stood against him in the struggles of his life, 
to bear testimony to Charles Sumner's virtues. 

There are many among them to-day, to whose sense 
of justice you might have safely confided the office, 
which to me is a task of love. 

Here I see his friends around me, the friends of his 
youth, of his manhood, of his advancing age ; among 
them, men whose illustrious names are household words 
as far as the English tongue is spoken, and far beyond. 
I saw them standing round his open grave, when it 
received the flower-decked coffin, mute sadness heavily 
clouding their brows. I understood their grief, for 
nobody could share it more than I. 

In such a presence, the temptation is great to seek 
that consolation for our loss which bereaved friendship 
finds in the exaltation of its bereavement. But not to 
you or me belonged this man while he lived ; not to 
you or me belongs his memory now that he is gone. 
His deeds, his example, and his fame, he left as a 
legacy to the American people and to mankind ; and it 
is my office to speak of this inheritance. I cannot 
speak of it without affection. I shall endeavor to do 
it with justice. 

Among the public characters of America, Charles 
Sumner stands peculiar and unique. His senatorial 
career is a conspicuous part of our political history. 
But in order to appreciate the man in the career, we 
must look at the story of his life. 



184 CHARLES SUMNER. 

The American people take pride in saying that almost 
all their great historic characters were self-made men, 
who, without the advantages of wealth and early oppor- 
tunities, won their education, raised themselves to use- 
fulness and distinction, and achieved their greatness 
through a rugged hand-to-hand struggle with adverse 
fortune. It is indeed so. A log cabin; a ragged little 
boy walking barefooted to a lowly country school-house, 
or sometimes no school-house at all ; — a lad, after a 
day's hard toil on the farm, or in the workshop, poring 
greedily, sometimes stealthily, over a volume of poetry, 
or history, or travels ; — a forlorn-looking youth, with 
elbows out, applying at a lawyer's office for an oppor- 
tunity to study ; — then the young man a successful 
practitioner attracting the notice of his neighbors ; — 
then a member of a State Legislature, a representative 
in Congress, a Senator, maybe a Cabinet Minister, or 
even President. Such are the pictures presented by 
many a proud American biography. 

And it is natural that the American people should 
be proud of it, for such a biography condenses in the 
compass of a single life the great story of the Ameri- 
can nation, as from the feebleness and misery of early 
settlements in the bleak solitude it advanced to the 
subjugation of the hostile forces of nature ; plunged 
into an arduous struggle with dangers and difficulties 
only known to itself, gathering strength from every 
conflict and experience from every trial ; with undaunted 
pluck widening the range of its experiments and crea- 
tive action, until at last it stands there as one of the 
greatest powers of the earth. The people are fond of 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUKZ. 185 

seeing their image reflected in the lives of their fore- 
most representative men. 

But not such a life was that of Charles Sumher. 
He was descended from good old Kentish yeomanry 
stock, men stalwart of frame, stout of heart, who used 
to stand in the front of the fierce battles of Old Eng 
land; and the first of the name who came to America 
had certainly not been exempt from the rough struggles 
of the early settlements. But already from the year 
1723 a long l ille of Simmers appears on the records of 
Harvard College, and it is evident that the love of 
study had long been hereditary in the family. Charles 
Pinckney Sumner, the Senator's father, was a graduate 
of Harvard, a lawyer by profession, for fourteen years 
high sheriff of Suffolk County. His literary tastes and 
acquirements, and his stately politeness are still remem- 
bered. He was altogether a man of high respecta- 
bility. 

He was not rich, but in good circumstances; and 
well able to give his children the best opportunities 
to study, without working for their daily bread. 

Charles Sumker was born iu Boston, on the 6th 
of January, 1811. At the age of ten he had received 
his rudimentary training; at fifteen, after having gone 
through the Boston Latin School, he entered Harvard 
College, and plunged at once with fervor into the class- 
ics, polite literature and history. Graduated iu 16o0, 
he entered the Cambridge Law School. ,\ow life began 
to open to him. Judge Story, his most distinguished 
teacher, soon recognized in him a young man of uncom- 
mon stamp ; and an intimate friendship sprang up 



186 CHARLES SUMNER. 

between teacher and pupil, which was severed only by 
death. 

He began to distinguish himself not only by the most 
arduous industry and application, pushing his researches 
far beyond the text-books — indeed, text-books never sat- 
isfied him — but by a striking eagerness and faculty to 
master the original principles of the science, and to 
trace them through its development. 

His productive labor began, and I find it stated that 
already then, while he was^ yet a pupil, his essays, 
published in the " American Jurist," were " always char- 
acterized by breadth of view and accuracy of learning, 
and sometimes by remarkably subtle and ingenious 
investigations." 

Leaving the Law School he entered the office of a 
lawyer in Boston, to acquire a knowledge of practice, 
never much to his taste. Then he visited Washington 
for the first time, little dreaming what a theatre of 
action, struggle, triumph and suffering the national 
city was to become for him ; for then he came only 
as a studious, deeply interested looker-on, who merely 
desired to form the acquaintance of the justices and 
practicing lawyers at the bar of the Supreme Court. 
He was received with marked kindness by Chief-Justice 
Marshall, and in later years he loved to tell his friends 
how he had sat at the feet of that great magistrate, 
and learned there what a judge should be. 

Having been admitted to the bar in Worcester in 
1834, when twenty-three years old, he opened an office 
in Boston, was soon appointed reporter of the United 
States Circuit Court, published three volumes con- 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ. 187 

taining Judge Story's decisions, known as "Sumner's 
Reports," took Judge Story's place from time to time 
as lecturer in the Harvard Law School ; also Professor 
Greenleaf's, who was absent, and edited during the 
years 1835 and 1836 Andrew Dunlap's Treatise on 
Admiralty Practice. Beyond this, his studies, ardu- 
ous, incessant and thorough, ranged far and wide. 

Truly a studious and laborious young man, who took 
the business of life earnestly in hand, determined to 
know something, and to be useful to his time and 
country. 

But what he had learned and could learn at home 
did not satisfy his craving. In 1837 he went to 
Europe, armed with a letter from Judge Story's hand 
to the law magnates of England, to whom his patron 
introduced him as " a young lawyer giving promise of 
the most eminent distinction in his profession, with 
truly extraordinary attainments, literary and judicial, 
and a gentleman of the highest purity and propriety 
of character." 

This was not a mere complimentary introduction ; it 
was the conscientious testimony of a great judge, who 
well knew his responsibilit}^, and who afterwards, when 
his death approached, adding to that testimony, was 
frequently heard to say, "I shall die content, as far 
as my professorship is concerned, if Charles Sumner 
is to succeed me." 

In England, young Sumner, only feeling himself 
standing on the threshold of life, was received like a 
man of already achieved distinction. Every circle of a 
society, ordinarily so exclusive, was open to him. 



188 CHARLES SUMNER. 

Often, by invitation, he sat with the judges in West- 
minster Hall. Renowned statesmen introduced him on 
the floor of the Houses of Parliament. Eagerly he fol- 
lowed the debates, and studied the principles and prac- 
tice of parliamentary law on its maternal soil, where 
from the first seed-corn it had grown up into a mag- 
nificent tree, in whose shadow a great people can dwell 
in secure enjoyment of their rights. Scientific associa- 
tions received him as a welcome guest, and the learned 
and great willingly opened to his winning presence their 
stores of knowledge and statesmanship. 

In France he listened to the eminent men of the 
Law School in Paris, at the Sorbonne and the College 
de France, and with many of the statesmen of that 
country he maintained instructive intercourse. In Italy 
he gave himself up to the charms of art, poetry, his- 
tory and classical literature. In Germany he enjoyed 
the conversation of Humboldt, of Ranke the historian, 
of Ritter the geographer, and of the great jurists, Sa- 
vigny, Thibaut and Mittermaier. 

Two years after his return the "London Quarterly 
Review" said of his visit to England, "He presents in 
his own person a decisive proof that an American gen- 
tleman, without official rank or wide-spread reputation, 
by mere dint of courtesy, candor, an entire absence of 
pretension, an appreciating spirit and a cultured mind, 
may be received on a perfect footing of equality in the 
best circles, social, political and intellectual." 

It must have been true, for it came from a quarter 
not given to the habit of flattering Americans beyond 
their deserts. And Charles Sumner was not then the 



EULOGY BY CARL SCIIUEZ. 189 

senator of power and fame; he was only the young 
son of a late sheriff of Suffolk County in Massachu- 
setts, who had neither riches nor station, but who pos- 
sessed that most winning charm of youth— purity of 
soul, modesty of conduct, culture of mind, an earnest 
thirst of knowledge, and a brow bearing the stamp of 
noble manhood and the promise of future achievements. 

He returned to his native shores in 1840, himself 
like a heavily freighted ship, bearing a rich cargo of 
treasures collected in foreign lands. 

He resumed the practice of law in Boston ; but, as I 
find it stated, "not with remarkable success in a finan- 
cial point of view." That I readily believe. The 
financial point of view was never to him a fruitful 
source of inspiration. Again he devoted himself to the 
more congenial task of teaching at the Cambridge Law 
School, and of editing an American edition of "Vesey's 
Reports," in twenty volumes, with elaborate notes con- 
tributed by himself. 

But now the time had come w r hen a new field of 
action was to open itself to him. On the 4th of July, 
1845, he delivered before the City Authorities of Bos- 
ton, an address on "The True Grandeur of Nations." 
So far he had been only a student — a deep and ardu- 
ous one, and a writer and a teacher, but nothing more. 
On that day his public career commenced. And his 
first public address disclosed at once the peculiar impulse 
and inspirations of his heart, and the tendencies of his 
mind. It was a plea for universal peace,— a poetic rhap- 
sody on the wrongs and horrors of war and the beauties 
of concord ; not, indeed, without solid argument, but 



190 CHARLES SUMXER. 

that argument clothed in all the gorgeousness of histori- 
cal illustration, classic imagery and fervid effusion, rising 
high above tbe level of existing conditions, and pictur- 
ing an ideal future, — the universal reign of justice and 
charity, — not far off to his own imagination, but for 
beyond the conceptions of living society ; but to that 
society he addressed the urgent summons, to go forth at 
once in pursuit of this ideal consummation ; to trans- 
form all swords into ploughshares, and all war-ships into 
peaceful merchantmen, without delay ; believing that thus 
the nation would rise to a greatness never known before, 
which it could accomplish if it only willed it. 

And this speech he delivered while the citizen soldiery 
of Boston in festive array were standing before him, 
and while the very air was stirred by the premonitory 
mutterings of an approaching war. 

The whole man revealed himself in that utterance ; a 
soul full of the native instinct of justice ; an overpow- 
ering sense of right and wrong, which made him look 
at the problems of human society from the lofty plane 
of an ideal morality, which fixed for him, high beyond 
the existing condition of things, the aims for which he 
must strive, and inspired and fired his ardent nature for 
the struggle. His education had singularly favored and 
developed that ideal tendency. It was not that of the 
self-made man in the common acceptation of the word. 
The distracting struggles for existence, the small, harass- 
ing cares of every-day life, had remained foreign to him. 
His education was that of the favored few. He found 
all the avenues of knowledge wide open to him. All 
that his country could give he had : the most renowned 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ. 191 

schools ; the living instruction of the most elevating per- 
sonal associations. It was the education of the typical 
young English gentleman. Like the English gentleman, 
also, he travelled abroad to widen his mental horizon. 
And again, all that foreign countries could give he had : 
the instruction of great lawyers and men of science, the 
teachings and example of statesmen, the charming atmos- 
phere of poetry and art, which graces and elevates the 
soul. He had also learned to work, to work hard and 
with a purpose, and at thirty-four, when he first appeared 
conspicuously before the people, he could already point 
to many results of his labors. 

But his principal work had been an eager accumula- 
tion of knowledge in his own mind, an accumulation 
most extraordinary in its scope and variety. His natural 
inclination to search for fundamental principles and 
truths had been favored by his opportunities, and all 
his industry in collecting knowledge became subservient 
to the building up of his ideals. Having not been 
tossed and jostled through the school of want and 
adversity, he lacked, what that school is best apt to 
develop, — keen, practical instincts, sharpened by early 
struggles, and that sober appreciation of the realities 
and possibilities of the times which is forced upon men 
by a hard contact with the world. He judged life from 
the stillness of the student's closet and from his inter- 
course with the refined and elevated, and he acquired 
little of those experiences which might have dampened 
his zeal in working for his ideal aims, and staggered 
his faith in their realization. His mind loved to move 
and operate in the realm of ideas, not of things ; in 



192 CHARLES SUMNER. 

fact, it could scarcely have done otherwise. Thus 
nature and education made him an idealist, — and, indeed, 
he stands as the most pronounced idealist among the 
public men of America. 

He was an ardent friend of liberty, not like one of 
those who have themselves suffered oppression and felt 
the galling weight of chains ; nor like those who in the 
common walks of life have experienced the comfort of 
wide elbow-room and the quickening and encouraging 
influence of free institutions for the practical work of 
society. But to him liberty was the ideal goddess 
clothed in sublime attributes of surpassing beauty and 
beneficence, giving to every human being his eter- 
nal rights, showering around her the treasures of her 
blessings, and lifting up the lowly to an ideal exist- 
ence. 

In the same ethereal light stood in his mind the 
Republic, his country, the law, the future organization 
of the great family of nations. 

That idealism was sustained and quickened, not merely 
by his vast learning and classical inspirations, but by 
that rare and exquisite purity of life, and high moral 
sensitiveness, which he had preserved intact and fresh 
through all the temptations of his youth, and which, 
remained intact and fresh down to his last day. 

Such was the man, when, in the exuberant vigor of 
manhood, he entered public life. Until that time he 
had entertained no aspirations for a political career. 
When discussing with a friend of his youth, — now a 
man of fame, — what the future might have in store for 
them, he said : " You may be a Senator of the United 



EULOGY BY CARL SC1IURZ. 193 

States some clay; but nothing would make me happier 
than to be President of Harvard College." 

And in later years he publicly declared : « With the 
ample opportunities of private life I was content. No 
tombstone for me could bear a fairer inscription than 
this: 'Here lies one who, without the honors or emol- 
uments of public station, did something for his fellow- 
men.'" It was the scholar who spoke, and no doubt 
he spoke sincerely. But he found the slavery question 
in his path; or, rather, the slavery question seized 
upon him. The advocate of universal peace, of the 
eternal reign of justice and charity, could not fail to 
see in slavery the embodiment of universal war of man 
against man, of absolute injustice and oppression. Little 
knowing where the first word would carry him, he soon 
found himself in the midst of the struggle. 

The idealist found a living question to deal with> 
which, like a Hash of lightning, struck into the very 
depth of his soul, and set it on fire. The whole ardor 
of his nature broke out in the enthusiasm of the anti- 
slavery man. In a series of glowing addresses and let- 
ters he attacked the great wrong. He protested against 
the Mexican War ; he assailed with powerful strokes 
the Fugitive Slave Law ; he attempted to draw the 
Whig party into a decided anti-slavery policy ; and when 
that failed, he broke through his party affiliations, and 
joined the small band of Free-Soilers. He was an abo- 
litionist by nature, but not one of those who rejected the 
Constitution as a covenant with slavery. His legal mind 
found in the Constitution no express recognition of sla- 
very, and he consistently construed it as a warrant of 



19 J: CHARLES SUMNER. 

freedom. This placed him in the ranks of those who 
were called "political abolitionists." 

He did not think of the sacrifices which this obedience 
to his moral impulses might cost him. For, at that 
time, abolitionism was by no means a fashionable thing. 
An anti-slavery man was then, even in Boston, posi- 
tively the horror of a large portion of polite society. 
To make anti-slavery speeches was looked upon, not 
only as an incendiary, but a vulgar occupation. And 
that the highly refined Sumner, who was so learned and 
able, who had seen the world and mixed with the high- 
est social circles in Europe ; who knew the classics by 
heart, and could deliver judgment on a picture or a 
statue like a veteran connoisseur ; who was a favorite 
with the wealthy and powerful, and could, in his aspi- 
rations for an easy and fitting position in life, count 
upon their whole influence, if he only would not do any- 
thing foolish, — that such a man should go among the abo- 
litionists, and not only sympathize with them, but work 
w r ith them, and expose himself to the chance of being 
dragged through the streets by vulgar hands with a rope 
round his neck, like William Lloyd Garrison, — that was 
a thing at Avhich the polite society of that day would 
revolt, and which no man could undertake without dan- 
ger of being severely dropped. But that was the thing 
w r hich the refined Sumner actually did, probably with- 
out giving a moment's thought to the possible conse- 
quences. 

He went even so far as openly to defy that dictator- 
ship which Daniel Webster had for so many years been 
.exercising over the political mind of Massachusetts, and 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ. 195 

which then was about to exert its power in favor of a 
compromise with slavery. 

But times were changing, and only six years after the 
delivery of his first popular address he was elected to 
the Senate of the United States by a combination of 
Democrats and Free-Soilers. 

Charles Sumner entered the Senate on the first day 
of December, 1851. He entered as the successor of 
Daniel Webster, who had been appointed Secretary of 
State. On that same first of December Henry Clay 
spoke his last word in the Senate, and then left the 
chamber, never to return. 

A striking and most significant coincidence: Henry 
Clay disappeared from public life; Daniel Webster left 
the Senate, drawing near his end; Charles Sumner 
stepped upon the scene. The close of one and the set- 
ting in of another epoch in the history of the American 
Kepublic were portrayed in the exit and entry of these 
men. 

Clay and Webster had appeared in the councils of the 
nation in the early part of this century. The Republic 
was then still in its childhood, in almost every respect 
still an untested experiment, an unsolved problem. 
Slowly and painfully had it struggled through the first 
conflicts of constitutional theories, and acquired only 
an uncertain degree of national consistency. There 
were the somewhat unruly democracies of the States, 
with their fresh revolutionary reminiscences, their in- 
stincts of entirely independent sovereignty, and their 
now and then seemingly divergent interests; and the 
task of binding them firmly together in the bonds of 



106 CHARLES SUMNER. 

common aspirations, of national spirit and the authority 
of national law, had, indeed, fairly progressed, but was 
far from being entirely accomplished. The United 
States, not yet compacted by the means of rapid loco- 
motion which to-day make every inhabitant of the land 
a neighbor of the national capital, were then still a 
straggling confederacy ; and the members of that con- 
federacy had, since the triumphant issue of the Revolu- 
tion, more common memories of severe trials, sufferings, 
embarrassments, dangers and anxieties together, than of 
cheering successes and of assured prosperity and well- 
being. 

The great powers of the Old World, fiercely con- 
tending among themselves for the mastery, trampled, 
without remorse, upon the neutral rights of the young 
and feeble Republic. A war was impending with one 
of them, bringing on disastrous reverses and spreading 
alarm and discontent over the land. A dark cloud of 
financial difficulty hung over the nation. And the 
danger from abroad and embarrassments at home were 
heightened by a restless party spirit, which former dis- 
agreements had left behind them, and which every 
newly arising question seemed to embitter. The out- 
look was dark and uncertain. It was under such cir- 
cumstances that Henry Clay first, and Daniel Webster 
shortly after him, stepped upon the scene, and at once 
took their station in the foremost rank of public men. 

The problems to be solved by the statesmen of that 
period were of an eminently practical nature. They 
had to establish the position of the young Republic 
among the powers of the earth; to make her rights as 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ. 197 

a neutral respected; to secure the safety of her mari- 
time interests. They had to provide for national defence. 
They had to set the interior household of the Republic 
in working order. 

They had to find remedies for a burdensome public 
debt and a disordered currency. They had to invent 
and originate policies, to bring to light the resources 
of the land, sleeping unknown in the virgin soil ; to 
open and make accessible to the husbandman the wild 
acres yet untouched; to protect the frontier settler 
against the inroads of the savage; to call into full 
activity the agricultural, commercial and industrial ener- 
gies of the people ; to develop and extend the prosperity 
of the nation so as to make even the discontented cease 
to doubt that the National Union was, and should be 
maintained as, a blessing to all. 

Thus we find the statesmanship of those times busily 
occupied with practical detail of foreign policy, national 
defence, financial policy, tariffs, banks, organization of 
governmental departments, land policy, Indian policy, 
internal improvements, settlements of disputes and diffi- 
culties among the States, contrivances of expediency of 
all sorts, to put the Government firmly upon its feet, 
and to set and keep in orderly motion the working of 
the political machinery, to build up and strengthen and 
secure the framework in which the mighty develop- 
ments of the future w T ere to take place. 

Such a task, sometimes small in its details, but diffi- 
cult and grand in its comprehensiveness, required that 
creative, organizing, building kind of statesmanship, 
wdiich to large and enlightened views of the aims and 



198 CHARLES SUMNER. 

ends of political organization and of the wants of society 
must add a practical knowledge of details, a skillful 
handling of existing material, a just understanding of 
causes and effects, the ability to compose distracting 
conflicts and to bring the social forces into fruitful 
co-operation. 

On this field of action Clay and Webster stood in the 
front rank of an illustrious array of contemporaries : 
Clay, the originator of measures and policies, with his 
inventive and organizing mind, not rich in profound 
ideas or in knowledge gathered by book-study, but 
learning as he went; quick in the perception of exist- 
ing wants and difficulties and of the means within reach 
to satisfy the one and overcome the other ; and a born 
captain also, — a commander of men, who appeared as 
if riding through the struggles of those days mounted 
on a splendidly caparisoned charger, sword in hand, 
and with waving helmet and plume, leading the front; — 
a fiery and truly magnetic soul, overaAving with his 
frown, enchanting with his smile, flourishing the weapon 
of eloquence like a wizard's wand, overwhelming oppo- 
sition and kindling and fanning the flame of enthusiasm ; 
— a marshaller of parties, whose very presence and voice 
like a signal-blast created and wielded organization. 

And by his side Daniel Webster, with that awful 
vastness of brain, a tremendous storehouse of thought 
and knowledge, which gave forth its treasures with 
ponderous majesty of utterance ; he not an originator 
of measures and policies, but a mighty advocate, the 
greatest advocate this country ever knew, — a king in 
the realm of intellect, and the solemn embodiment of 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ. 199 

authority,— a huge Atlas, who carried the Constitution 
on his shoulders. He could have carried there the 
whole moral grandeur of the nation, had he never com- 
promised his own. 

Such men filled the stage during that period of con- 
struction and conservative national organization, devoting 
the best efforts of their statesmanship, the statesmanship 
of the political mind, to the purpose of raising their 
country to greatness in wealth and power, of making 
the people proud of their common nationality, and of 
imbedding the Union in the contentment of prosperity, 
in enlightened patriotism, national law, and constitu- 
tional principle. 

And when they drew near their end, they could boast 
of many a grand achievement, not indeed exclusively 
their own, for other powerful minds had their share in 
the work. The United States stood there among the 
great powers of the earth, strong and respected. The 
Republic had no foreign foe to fear ; its growth in 
population and wealth, in popular intelligence and pro- 
gressive civilization, the wonder of the world. There 
was no visible limit to its development; there seemed 
to be no danger to its integrity. 

But among the problems which the statesmen of that 
period had grappled with, there was one which had 
eluded their grasp. Many a conflict of opinion and 
interest they had succeeded in settling, either by positive 
decision, or by judicious composition. But one conflict 
had stubbornly baffled the statesmanship of expedients, 
for it was more than a mere conflict of opinion and 



200 CHARLES SUMNER. 

interest. It was a conflict grounded deep in the moral 
nature of men— the slavery question. 

Many a time had it appeared on the surface during the 
period I have described, threatening to overthrow all 
that had been ingeniously built up, and to break asunder 
all that had been laboriously cemented together. In 
their anxiety to avert every danger threatening the 
Union, they attempted to repress the slavery question 
by compromise, and, apparently, with success, at least 
for awhile. 

But however firmly those compromises seemed to 
stand, there was a force of nature at work which, like a 
restless flood, silently but unceasingly and irresistibly 
washed their foundation away, until at last the towering 
structure toppled down. 

The anti-slavery movement is now one of the great 
chapters of our past history. The passions of the strug- 
gle having been buried in thousands of graves, and the 
victory of Universal Freedom standing as firm and 
unquestionable as the eternal hills, we may now look 
back upon that history with an impartial eye. It may 
be hoped that even the people of the South, if they do 
not yet appreciate the spirit which created and guided 
the anti-slavery movement, will not much longer mis- 
understand it. Indeed, they grievously misunderstood 
it at the time. They looked upon it as the offspring 
of a wanton desire to meddle with other people's affairs, 
or as the product of hypocritical selfishness assuming 
the mask and cant of philanthropy, merely to rob the 
South and to enrich New England ; or as an insidious 



EULOGY BY CATIL SCHUKZ. 201 

contrivance of criminally reckless political ambition, 
striving to grasp and monopolize power at the risk of 
destroying a part of the country or even the whole. 

It was, perhaps, not unnatural that those interested in 
slavery should have thought so; but from this great 
error arose their fatal miscalculation as to the peculiar 
strength of the anti-slavery cause. 

No idea ever agitated the popular mind to whose 
origin calculating selfishness was more foreign. Even 
the great uprising which brought about the War of Inde- 
pendence was less free from selfish motives, for it sprang 
from resistance to a tyrannical abuse of the taxing 
power. Then the people rose against that oppression 
which touched their property ; the anti-slavery move- 
ment originated in an impulse purely moral. 

It was the irresistible breaking out of a trouble of 
conscience, — a trouble of conscience which had already 
disturbed the men who made the American Republic. 
It found a voice in their anxious admonitions, their 
gloomy prophecies, their scrupulous care to exclude 
from the Constitution all forms of expression which 
might have appeared to sanction the idea of property 
in man. 

It found a voice in the fierce struggles which resulted 
in the Missouri Compromise. It was repressed for a 
time by material interest, by the greed of gain, when 
the peculiar product of slave labor became one of the 
principal staples of the country and a mine of wealth. 
But the trouble of conscience raised its voice again, 
shrill and defiant as when your own John Quiiuv Adams 
stood in the halls of Congress, and when devoted advo- 

26 



202 CHARLES SUMNER. 

cates of the rights of man began and carried on, in the 
face of ridicule and brutal persecution, an agitation 
seemingly hopeless. It cried out again and again, until 
at last its tones and echoes grew louder than all the 
noises that were to drown it. 

The anti-slavery movement found arrayed against 
itself all the influences, all the agencies, all the argu- 
ments which ordinarily control the actions of men. 

Commerce said, — Do not disturb slavery, for its pro- 
ducts fill our ships and are one of the principal means 
of our exchanges. Industry said, — Do not disturb sla- 
very, for it feeds our machinery and gives us markets. 
The greed of wealth said, — Do not disturb slavery, for 
it is an inexhaustible fountain of riches. Political ambi- 
tion said, — Do not disturb slavery, for it furnishes us 
combinations and compromises to keep parties alive and 
to make power the price of shrewd management. An 
anxious statesmanship said, — Do not disturb slavery, for 
you might break to pieces the union of these States. 

There never was a more formidable combination of 
interests and influences thau that which confronted the 
anti-slavery movement in its earlier stages. And what 
was its answer? "Whether all you say be true or false, 
it matters not, but slavery is wrong." 

Slavery is wrong ! That one word was enough. It 
stood there like a huge rock in the sea, shivering 
to spray the waves dashing upon it. Interest, greed, 
argument, vituperation, calumny, ridicule, persecution, 
patriotic appeal, — it was all in vain. Amidst all the 
storm and assault that one word stood there unmoved, 
intact and impregnable : Slavery is wrong. 



EULOGY BY CARL SCIIURZ. 203 

Such was the vital spirit of the anti-slavery movement 
in its early development, Such a spirit alone could 
inspire that religious devotion which gave to the 
believer all the stubborn energy of fanaticism ; it alone 
could kindle that deep enthusiasm which made men 
willing to risk and sacrifice everything for a great 
cause; it alone could keep alive that unconquerable 
faith in the certainty of ultimate success which boldly 
attempted to overcome seeming impossibilities. 

It was indeed a great spirit, as, against difficulties 
which threw pusillanimity into despair, it painfully 
struggled into light, often baffled and as often pressing 
forward with devotion always fresh ; nourished by noth- 
ing but a profound sense of right; encouraged by 
nothing but the cheering sympathy of liberty-loving 
mankind the world over, and by the hope that some 
day the conscience of the American people would be 
quickened by a full understanding of the dangers which 
the existence of the great wrong would bring upon 
the Republic. No scramble for the spoils of office then, 
no expectation of a speedy conquest of power, — nothing 
but that conviction, that enthusiasm, that faith in the 
breasts of a small band of men, and the prospect of 
new uncertain struo-Hes and trials. 

At the time when Mr. Sumner entered the Senate, 
the hope of final victory appeared as distant as ever ; 
but it only appeared so. The statesmen of the past 
period had just succeeded in building up that compro- 
mise which admitted California as a free State, and 
imposed upon the Republic the Fugitive Slave Law. 
That compromise, like all its predecessors, was consid- 



204 CHARLES SUMNER. 

Cred and called a final settlement. The two great polit- 
ical parties accepted it as such. In whatever they might 
differ, as to this they solemnly proclaimed their agree- 
ment. Fidelity to it was looked upon as a test of true 
patriotism, and as a qualification necessary for the 
possession of political power. Opposition to it was 
denounced as factious, unpatriotic, revolutionary derna- 
gogism, little short of treason. An overwhelming 
majority of the American people acquiesced in it. 
Material interest looked upon it with satisfaction, as a 
promise of repose ; timid and sanguine patriots greeted 
it as a new bond of union ; politicians hailed it as an 
assurance that the fight for the public plunder might 
be carried on without the disturbing intrusion of a 
moral principle in politics. But, deep down, men's con- 
science like a volcanic fire was restless, ready for a 
new outbreak as soon as the thin crust of compromise 
should crack. And just then the day was fast approach- 
ing when the moral idea, which so far had only broken 
out sporadically, and moved small numbers of men 
to open action, should receive a reinforcement strong 
enough to transform a forlorn hope into an army of 
irresistible strength. One of those eternal laws which 
govern the development of human affairs asserted itself, 
— the law that a great wrong, which has been main- 
tained in defiance of the moral sense of mankind, must 
finally, by the very means and measures necessary for 
its sustenance, render itself so insupportable as to insure 
its downfall and destruction. 

So it was with slavery. I candidly acquit the Ameri- 
can slave-power of willful and wanton aggression upon 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUEZ. 205 

the liberties and general interests of the American peo- 
ple. If slavery was to be kept alive at all, its sup- 
porters could not act otherwise than they did. 

Slavery could not live and thrive in an atmosphere 
of free inquiry and untrammelled discussion. There- 
fore free inquiry and discussion touching slavery had 
to be suppressed. 

Slavery could not be secure, if slaves, escaping 
merely across a State line, thereby escaped the grasp 
of their masters. Hence an effective Fugitive Slave 
Law was imperatively demanded. 

Slavery could not protect its interests in the Union 
unless its power balanced that of the free States in the 
national councils. Therefore by colonization or con- 
quest the number of slave States had to be augmented. 
Hence the annexation of Texas, the Mexican war, and 
intrigues for the acquisition of Cuba. 

Slavery could not maintain the equilibrium of power, 
if it permitted itself to be excluded from the national 
Territories. Hence the breaking down of the Missouri 
Compromise and the usurpation in Kansas. 

Thus slavery was pushed on and on by the inex- 
orable logic of its existence ; the slave masters were 
only the slaves of the necessities of slavery, and all 
their seeming exactions and usurpations were merely a 
struggle for its life. 

Many of their demands had been satisfied, on the 
part of the North, by submission or compromise. The 
Northern people, although with reluctant conscience, 
had acquiesced in the contrivances of politicians, for the 
sake of peace. But when the slave-power went so far 



206 



CHAKLES SUMNER. 



as to demand for slavery the great domain of the nation 
which had been held sacred to freedom forever, then 
the people of the North suddenly understood that the 
necessities of slavery demanded what they could not 
yield. Then the conscience of the masses was relieved 
of the doubts and fears which had held it so lono- in 
check ; their moral impulses were quickened by prac- 
tical perceptions; the moral idea became a practical 
force, and the final struggle began. It was made inevi- 
table by the necessities of slavery; it was indeed an 
irrepressible conflict. 

These things were impending when Henry Clay and 
Daniel Webster, the architects of the last compromise, 
left the Senate. Had they, with all their far-seeing 
statesmanship, never understood this logic of things? 
When they made their compromises, did they only 
desire to postpone the final struggle until they should 
be gone, so that they might not witness the terrible 
concussion? Or had their great and manifold achieve- 
ments with the statesmanship of organization and expe- 
diency so deluded their minds, that they really hoped 
a compromise which only ignored, but did not settle, 
the great moral question, could furnish an enduring 
basis for future developments? 

One thing they and their contemporaries had indeed 
accomplished ; under their care the Republic had grown 
so great and strong, its vitality had become so tough, 
that it could endure the final struggle without falling 
to pieces under its shocks. 

Whatever their errors, their delusions, and, perhaps, 
their misgivings may have been, this they had accom- 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ. 207 

plished; and then they left the last compromise tot- 
tering behind them, and turned their faces to the wall 
and died. 

And with them stepped into the background the 
statesmanship of organization, expedients and compro- 
mises ; and to the front came, ready for action, the 
moral idea which was to light out the great conflict, 
and to open a new epoch of American history. 

That was the historic significance of the remarkable 
scene which show r ed us Henry Clay walking out of the 
Senate Chamber never to return, when Charles Sum- 
nek sat down there as the successor of Daniel Webster. 

No man could, in his whole being, have more strik- 
ingly portrayed that contrast. When Charles Sumner 
had been elected to the Senate, Theodore Parker said 
to him, in a letter of congratulation, "You told me 
once that you were in morals, not in politics. Now I 
hope you will show that you are still in morals, 
although in politics. I hope you will be the Senator 
with a conscience." That hope was gratified. He 
always remained in morals while in politics. He never 
was anything else but the Senator with a conscience. 
Charles Sumner entered the Senate not as a mere 
advocate, but as the very embodiment of the moral 
idea. From this fountain flowed his highest aspirations. 
There had been great anti-slavery men in the Senate 
before him ; they were there with him, men like Sew- 
ard and Chase. But they had been trained in a dif- 
ferent school. Their minds had ranged over other 
political fields. They understood politics. He did not. 
He knew but one political object,— to combat and over- 



208 CHARLES SUMNER. 

throw the great wrong of slavery : to serve the ideal 
of the liberty and equality of men; and to establish 
the universal reign of "peace, justice and charity." 
He brought to the Senate a studious mind, vast learn- 
ing, great legal attainments, a powerful eloquence, a 
strong and ardent nature ; and all this he vowed to 
one service. With all this he was not a mere expounder 
of a policy ; he was a worshipper, sincere and devout, 
at the shrine of his ideal. In no public man had the 
moral idea of the anti-slavery movement more overrul- 
ing strength. He made everything yield to it. He did 
not possess it ; it possessed him. That was the secret 
of his peculiar power. 

He introduced himself into the debates of the Senate, 
the slavery question having been silenced forever, as 
politicians then thought, by several speeches on other 
subjects, — the reception of Kossuth, the Land Policy, 
Ocean Postage ; but they were not remarkable, and 
attracted but little attention. 

At last he availed himself of an appropriation bill to 
attack the Fugitive Slave Law, and at once a spirit 
broke forth in that first word on the great question 
which startled every listener. 

Thus he opened the argument : — 

"Painfully convinced of the unutterable wrong and 
woe of slavery, — -.profoundly believing that according to 
the true spirit of the Constitution and the sentiments 
of the fathers, it can find no place under our National 
Government, — I could not allow this session to reach 
its close without making or seizing an opportunity to 



EULOGY BY CARL SCIIURZ. 209 

declare myself openly against the usurpation, injustice, 
and cruelty of the late intolerant enactment for the 
recovery of fugitive slaves." 

Then this significant declaration : — 

"Whatever I am or may be, I freely offer to this 
cause. I have never been a politician. The slave of 
principles, I call no party master. By sentiment, educa- 
tion, and conviction, a friend of Human Eights in their 
utmost expansion, I have ever most sincerely embraced 
the Democratic idea — not, indeed, as represented or 
professed by any party, but according to its real sig- 
nificance, as transfigured in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and in the injunctions of Christianity. In this 
idea I see no narrow advantage merely for individuals 
or classes, but the sovereignty of the people, and the 
greatest happiness of all secured by equal laws." 

A vast array of historical research and of legal argu- 
ment was then called up to prove the sectionalism of 
slavery, the nationalism of freedom, and the unconsti- 
tutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act, followed by this 
bold declaration : " By the Supreme Law, which com- 
mands me to do no injustice, by the comprehensive 
Christian Law of Brotherhood, by the Constitution I 
have sworn to support, I am bound to disobey this 
law." And the speech closed with this solemn quota- 
tion : "Beware of the groans of wounded souls, since 
the inward sore will at length break out. Oppress not 

27 



210 CHARLES SUMNER. 

to the utmost a single heart; for a solitary sigh has 
power to overturn a whole world." 

The amendment to the appropriation bill moved by 
Mr. Sumnee received only four votes of fifty-one. But 
every hearer had been struck by the words spoken as 
something different from the tone of other anti-slavery 
speeches delivered in those halls. Southern Senators, 
startled at the peculiarity of the speech, called it, 
in reply, "the most extraordinary language they had 
ever listened to." Mr. Chase, supporting Sumnee in 
debate, spoke of it, "as marking a new era in Amer- 
ican history, when the anti-slavery idea ceased to 
stand on the defensive and was boldly advancing to 
the attack." 

Indeed, it had that significance. There stood up in 
the Senate a man who was no politician ; but who, on 
the highest field of politics, with a concentrated inten- 
sity of feeling and purpose never before witnessed there, 
gave expression to a moral impulse, which, although 
sleeping perhaps for a time, certainly existed in the 
popular conscience, and which, once become a political 
force, could not fail to produce a great revolution. 

Chaeles Sumnee possessed all the instincts, the 
courage, the firmness and the faith of the devotee of a 
great idea. In the Senate he was a member of a feeble 
minority, so feeble, indeed, as to be to the ruling power 
a mere subject of derision ; and for the first three years 
of his service without organized popular support. The 
slaveholders had been accustomed to put the metal of 
their Northern opponents to a variety of tests. Many a 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUEZ. 211 

hot anti-slavery zeal had cooled under the social bland- 
ishments with which the South knew so well how to 
impregnate the atmosphere of the national capital, and 
many a high courage had given way before the haughty 
assumption and fierce menace of Southern men in Con- 
gress. Mr. Sumner had to pass that ordeal. He was 
at first petted and flattered by Southern society, but, 
fond as he was of the charms of social intercourse, and 
accessible to demonstrative appreciation, no blandish- 
ments could touch his convictions of duty. 

And when the advocates of slavery turned upon him 
with anger and menace, he hurled at them with prouder 
defiance his answer, repeating itself in endless varia- 
tions : "You must yield, for young are wro." 

The slave-power had so frequently succeeded in 
making the North yield to its demands, even after the 
most formidable demonstrations of reluctance, that it 
had become a serious question whether there existed ' 
any such thing as Northern firmness. But it did exist, 
and in Charles Sumner it had developed its severest 
political type. The stronger the assault, the higher rose 
in him the power of resistance. In him lived that spirit 
which not only would not yield, but would turn upon 
the assailant. The Southern force, which believed itself 
irresistible, found itself striking against a body which 
was immovable. To think of yielding to any demand 
of slavery, of making a compromise with it, in however 
tempting a form, was, to his nature, an absolute impos- 
sibility. 

Mr. Sumner's courage was of a peculiar kind. He 
attacked the slave-power in the most unsparing manner, 



212 CHARLES SUMNER. 

when its supporters were most violent in resenting 
opposition, and when that violence was always apt to 
proceed from words to blows. One day, while Sumner 
was delivering one of his severest speeches, Stephen 
A. Douglas, walking up and down behind the Presi- 
dent's chair in the old Senate Chamber, and listening to 
him, remarked to a friend: "Do you hear that man? 
He may be a fool, but I tell you that man has pluck. 
I wonder whether he knows himself what he is doino;. 
I am not sure whether I should have the courage to 
say those things to the men who are scowling around 
him." 

Of all men in the Senate Chamber, Sumner was proba- 
bly least aware that the thing he did required pluck. He 
simply did what he felt it his duty to his cause to do. 
It was to him a matter of course. He was like a soldier 
who, when he has to march upon the enemy's batteries, 
does not say to himself, " Now I am going to perform an 
act of heroism," but who simply obeys an impulse of 
duty, and marches forward without thinking of the bullets 
that fly around his head. A thought of the boldness of 
what he has done may then occur to him afterwards, when 
he is told of it. This was one of the striking peculiari- 
ties of Mr. Sumner's character, as all those know who 
knew him well. 

Neither was he conscious of the stinging force of the 
language he frequently employed. He simply uttered, 
what he felt to be true, in language fitting the strength of 
his convictions. The indignation of his moral sense at 
what he felt to be wrong was so deep and sincere that he 
thought everybody must find the extreme severity of his 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUEZ. 213 

expressions as natural as they came to his own mind. 
And he was not unfrequently surprised, greatly surprised, 
when others found his language offensive. 

As he possessed the firmness and courage, so he pos- 
sessed the faith of the devotee. From the beffinnmff. 
and through all the vicissitudes of the anti-slavery move- 
ment, his heart was profoundly assured that his genera- 
tion would see slavery entirely extinguished. 

While travelling in France to restore his health, after 
having been beaten down on the floor of the Senate, he 
visited Alexis de Tocqueville, the celebrated author of 
"Democracy in America." Tocqueville expressed, his 
anxiety about the issue of the anti-slavery movement, 
which then had suffered defeat by the election of Bu- 
chanan. "There can be no doubt about the result," said 
Sumner. " Slavery will soon succumb and disappear." 
" Disappear ! In what way, and how soon ? " asked 
Tocqueville. "In what manner I cannot say," replied 
Sumner. "How soon I cannot say. But it will be 
soon ; I feel it ; I know it. It cannot be otherwise." 
That was all the reason he gave. "Mr. Sumner is a 
remarkable man," said De Tocqueville afterwards to a 
friend of mine. "He says that slavery Avill soon entirely 
disappear in the United States. He does not know how, 
he does not know when ; but he feels it, he is perfectly 
sure of it. The man speaks like a prophet." And so it 
was. 

What appeared a perplexing puzzle to other men's 
minds was perfectly clear to him. His method of reason- 
ing was simple ; it was the reasoning of religious faith. 
Slavery is wrong,— therefore it must and will perish ; 



214 CHARLES SUMNER. 

freedom is right, — therefore it must and will prevail. 
And by no power of resistance, by no difficulty, by no 
disappointment, by no defeat, could that faith be shaken. 
For his cause, so great and just, he thought nothing 
impossible, everything certain. And he was unable to 
understand how others could fail to share his faith. 

In one sense he was no party leader. He possessed 
none of the instinct or experience of the politician, nor 
that sagacity of mind which appreciates and measures 
the importance of changing circumstances, or the pos- 
sibilities and opportunities of the day. He lacked, 
entirely, the genius of organization. He never under- 
stood, nor did he value, the art of strengthening his 
following by timely concession, or prudent reticence, 
or advantageous combination and alliance. He knew 
nothing of management and party manoeuvre. Indeed, 
not unfrequently he alarmed many devoted friends of his 
cause by bold declarations, for which, they thought, the 
public mind was not prepared, and by the unreserved 
avoAval and straightforward advocacy of ultimate objects, 
which, they thought, might safely be left to the natural 
development of events. He was not seldom accused of 
doing things calculated to frighten the people and to 
disorganize the anti-slavery forces. 

Such was his unequivocal declaration in his first great 
anti-slavery speech in the Senate, that he held himself 
bound by every conviction of justice, right and duty, to 
disobey the Fugitive Slave Law, and his ringing answer 
to the question put by Senator Butler of South Carolina, 
whether, without the Fugitive Slave Law, he would, under 
the Constitution, consider it his duty to aid the surrender 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHTJKZ. 215 

of fugitive slaves, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should 
do this thing ? " 

Such was his speech on the "Barbarism of Slavery," 
delivered on a bill to admit Kansas immediately under 
a free State Constitution ; — a speech so unsparing and 
vehement in the denunciation of slavery in all its politi- 
cal, moral and social aspects, and so direct in its predic- 
tion of the complete annihilation of slavery, that it was 
said such a speech would scarcely aid the admission of 
Kansas. 

Such was his unbending and open resistance to any 
plan of compromise calculated to preserve slavery, when 
after Mr. Lincoln's election the Rebellion first raised its 
head, and a large number of Northern people, even anti- 
slavery men, frightened by the threatening prospect of 
civil war, cast blindly about for a plan of adjustment, 
while really no adjustment was possible. 

Such was, early in the war, and during its most doubt- 
ful hours, his declaration, laid before the Senate in a 
series of resolutions, that the States in rebellion had 
destroyed themselves as such by the very act of rebellion ; 
that slavery, as a creation of State law, had perished with 
the States, and that general emancipation must imme- 
diately follow, — thus putting the programme of emanci- 
pation boldly in the foreground, at a time when many 
thought, that the cry of union alone, union with or with- 
out slavery, could hold together the Union forces. 

Such was his declaration, demanding negro suffrage 
even before the close of the war, while the public opinion 
at the North, whose aid the Government needed, still 
recoiled from such a measure. 



216 CHARLES SUMNER. 

Thus he was apt to go rough-shod over the considera- 
tions of management, deemed important by his co-work- 
ers. I believe he never consulted with his friends 
around him, before doing those things, and when they 
afterwards remonstrated with him, he ingenuously asked : 
"Is it not right and true, what I have said? And if it 
is right and true, must I not say it?" 

And yet, although he had no organizing mind, and 
despised management, he was a leader. He was a 
leader as the embodiment of the moral idea, with all 
its uncompromising firmness, its unflagging faith, its 
daring devotion. And in this sense he could be a 
leader only because he was no politician. He forced 
others to follow, because he was himself impracticable. 
Simply obeying his moral impulse, he dared to say 
things which in the highest legislative body of the 
Republic nobody else would say ; and he proved that 
they could be said, and yet the world would move on. 
With his wealth of learning and his legal ability, he 
furnished an arsenal of arguments, convincing more 
timid souls that what he said could be sustained in 
repeating. And presently the politicians felt encour- 
aged to follow in the direction where the idealist had 
driven a stake ahead. Nay, he forced them to follow, 
for they knew that the idealist, whom they could not 
venture to disown, would not fall back at their bid- 
ding. Such was his leadership in the struggle with 
slavery. 

Nor was that leadership interrupted when, on the 
22d of May, 1856, Preston Brooks of South Carolina, 
maddened by an arraignment of his State and its Sen- 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUKZ. 217 

ator, came upon Charles Sumner in the Senate, struck 
him down with heavy blows and left him on the ground 
bleeding and insensible. For three years Sumner's 
voice was not heard, but his blood marked the vantage 
ground from which his party could not recede; and his 
Senatorial chair, kept empty for him by the noble peo- 
ple of Massachusetts, stood there in most eloquent 
silence, confirming, sealing, inflaming all he had said 
with terrible illustration,— a guide-post to the onward 
march of freedom. 

When, in 1861, the Republican party had taken the 
reins of government in hand, his peculiar leadership 
entered upon a new field of action. No sooner was 
the victory of the anti-slavery cause in the election 
ascertained, than the Rebellion raised its head. South 
Carolina opened the secession movement. The portent- 
ous shadow of an approaching civil war spread over 
the land. A tremor fluttered through the hearts even 
of strong men in the North,— a vague fear such as is 
produced by the first rumbling of an earthquake. Could 
not a bloody conflict be averted? A fresh clamor for 
compromise arose. Even Republicans in Congress began 
to waver. The proposed compromise involved new and 
express constitutional recognitions of the existence and 
rights of slavery, and guarantees against interference 
with it by constitutional amendment or national law. 
The pressure from the country, even from Massachu- 
setts, in favor of the scheme, was extraordinary, but a 
majority of the anti-slavery men in the Senate, in their 
front Mr. Sumner, stood firm, feeling that a compro- 
mise, giving express constitutional sanction and an indefi- 

28 



218 CHARLES SUMMER. 

nite lease of life to slavery, would be a surrender, and 
knowing, also, that even by the offer of such a sur- 
render, secession and civil war would still be insisted 
on by the Southern leaders. The history of those days, 
as we now know it, confirms the accuracy of that judg- 
ment. The war was inevitable. Thus the anti-slavery 
cause escaped a useless humiliation, and retained intact 
its moral force for future action. 

But now the time had come when the anti-slavery 
movement, no longer a mere opposition to the demands 
of the slave-power, was to proceed to positive action. 
The war had scarcely commenced in earnest, when Mr. 
Sumner urged general emancipation. Only the great 
ideal object of the liberty of all men could give sanc- 
tion to a war in the eyes of the devotee of universal 
peace. To the end of stamping upon the war the char- 
acter of a war of emancipation all his energies were 
bent. His unreserved and emphatic utterances alarmed 
the politicians. Our armies suffered disaster upon dis- 
aster in the field. The managing mind insisted that 
care must be taken, by nourishing the popular enthu- 
siasm for the integrity of the Union, — the strictly 
national idea alone, — to unite all the social and politi- 
cal elements of the North for the struggle ; and that so 
bold a measure as immediate emancipation might reani- 
mate old dissensions, and put hearty co-operation in 
jeopardy. 

But Mr. Sumner's convictions could not be repressed. 
In a bold decree of universal liberty he saw only a 
new source of inspiration and strength. Nor was his 
impulsive instinct unsupported by good reason. The 



EULOGY BY CAUL SCHTJRZ. 219 

distraction produced in the North by an emancipation 
measure could only be of short duration. The moral 
spirit was certain, ultimately, to gain the upper hand 

But m another direction a bold and unequivocal 
anti-slavery policy could not fail to produce most 
salutary effects. One of the dangers threatening us was 
foreign interference. No European powers gave us their 
expressed sympathy except Germany and Russia. The 
governing classes of England, with conspicuous indi- 
vidual exceptions, always gratefully to be remembered, 
were ill-disposed towards the Union cause. The per- 
manent disruption of the Republic was loudly predicted, 
as if it were desired, and intervention-an intervention 
which could be only in favor of the South-was openly 
spoken of. The Emperor of the French, who availed 
himself of our embarrassments to execute his ambitious 
designs in Mexico, was animated by sentiments no less 
hostile. It appeared as if only a plausible opportunity 
had been wanting, to bring foreign intervention upon 
our heads. A threatening spirit, disarmed only by 
timely prudence, had manifested itself in the Trent case. 
It seemed doubtful whether the most skillful diplomacy, 
unaided by a stronger force, would be able to avert the 
danger. 

But the greatest strength of the anti-slavery cause 
had always been in the conscience of mankind. There 
was our natural ally. The cause of slavery as such 
could have no open sympathy among the nations of 
Europe. It stood condemned by the moral sentiment 
of the civilized world. How could any European gov- 



220 CHARLES SUMMER. 

ernment, in the face of that universal sentiment, under- 
take openly to interfere against a power waging war 
against slavery? Surely, that could not be thought of. 

But had the Government of the United States distinctly 
professed that it was waging war against slavery, and 
for freedom? Had it not been officially declared that 
the war for the Union would not alter the condition of 
a single human being in America? TVhy then not 
arrest the useless effusion of blood ; why not, by inter- 
vention, stop a destructive war, in which, confessedly, 
slavery and freedom were not at stake ? Such were the 
arguments of our enemies in Europe ; and they were 
not without color. 

It was obvious that nothing but a measure impressing 
beyond dispute upon our war a decided anti-slavery 
character, making it in profession what it was inevitably 
destined to be in fact, a war of emancipation, — could 
enlist on our side the enlightened public opinion of the 
Old World so strongly as to restrain the hostile spirit 
of foreign governments. No European government 
could well venture to interfere against those who had 
convinced the world that they were fighting to give 
freedom to the slaves of North America. 

Thus the moral instinct did not err. The emancipa- 
tion policy was not only the policy of principle, but 
also the policy of safety. Mr. Sumner urged it with 
impetuous and unflagging zeal. In the Senate he found 
but little encouragement. The resolutions he introduced 
in February, 1862, declaring State suicide as the con- 
sequence of Rebellion, and the extinction of slavery in 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHLTtZ. 221 

the insurrectionary States as the consequence of State 
suicide, were looked upon as an ill-timed and hazardous 
demonstration, disturbing all ideas of management. 

To the President, then, he devoted his efforts. 
Nothing could be more interesting, nay, touching, than 
the peculiar relations that sprung up between Abraham 
Lincoln and Charles Sumner. No two men could be 
more alike as to their moral impulses and ultimate 
aims ; no two men more unlike in their methods of 
reasoning and their judgment of means. 

Abraham Lincoln was a true child of the people. 
There was in his heart an inexhaustible fountain of 
tenderness, and from it sprung that longing to be true, 
just and merciful to all, which made the people love 
him. In the deep, large humanity of his soul had 
grown his moral and political principles, to which he 
clung with the fidelity of an honest nature, and which 
he defended with the strength of a vigorous mind. 

But he had not grown great in any high school of 
statesmanship. He had, from the humblest beginnings, 
slowly and laboriously worked himself up, or rather he 
had gradually risen up without being aware of it, and 
suddenly he found himself in the foremost rank of the 
distinguished men of the land. In his youth and early 
manhood he had achieved no striking successes that 
might have imparted to him that overweening self- 
appreciation which so frequently leads self-made men 
to overestimate their faculties, and to ignore the limits 
of their strength. He was not a learned man, but he 
had learned and meditated enough to feel how much 
there was still for him to learn. His marvellous sue- 



222 CHARLES SUMNER. 

cess in his riper years left intact the inborn modesty 
of his nature. He was absolutely without pretension. 
His simplicity, which by its genuineness extorted 
respect and affection, was wonderfully persuasive, and 
sometimes deeply pathetic and strikingly brilliant. 

His natural gifts were great; he possessed a clear 
and penetrating niiud, but in forming his opinions on 
subjects of importance, he was so careful, conscientious 
and diffident, that he would always hear and probe 
what opponents had to say, before he became firmly 
satisfied of the justness of his own conclusions, — not 
as if he had been easily controlled and led by other 
men, for he had a will of his own ; — but his mental 
operations were slow and hesitating, and inapt to 
conceive quick resolutions. He lacked self-reliance. 
Nobody felt more than he the awful weight of his 
respousibilities. He was not one of those bold reform- 
ers who will defy the opposition of the world, and 
undertake to impose their opinions and will upon a 
reluctant age. With careful consideration of the pos- 
sibilities of the hour he advanced slowly, but when he 
had so advanced, he planted his foot with firmness, and 
no power was strong enough to force him to a back- 
ward step. And every day of great responsibility 
enlarged the horizon of his mind, and every day he 
grasped the helm of affairs with a steadier hand. 

It was to such a man that Sumner, during the most 
doubtful days at the beginning of the war, addressed his 
appeals for immediate emancipation,— appeals impetuous 
and impatient, as they could spring only from his ardent 
and overruling convictions. 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUBZ. 223 

The President at first passively resisted the vehement 
counsel of the Senator, but he bade the counsellor 
welcome. It was Mr. Lincoln's constant endeavor to 
surround himself with the best and ablest men of the 
country. Not only did the first names of the Republican 
party appear in his Cabinet, but every able man in 
Congress was always invited as an adviser, whether his 
views agreed with those of the President or not. But 
Mr. Sumner he treated as a favorite counsellor, almost 
like a Minister of State, outside of the Cabinet. 

There were statesmen around the President who were 
also politicians, understanding the art of management. 
Mr. Lincoln appreciated the value of their advice as to 
what was prudent and practicable. But he knew also 
how to discriminate. In Mr. Sumner he saw a coun- 
sellor who was no politician, but who stood before him 
as the true representative of the moral earnestness, of 
the great inspirations of their common cause. From him 
he heard what was right, and necessary and inevitable. 
By the former he was told what, in their opinion, could 
prudently and safely be done. Having heard them both, 
Abraham Lincoln counselled with himself, and formed 
his resolution. Thus Mr. Lincoln, while scarcely ever 
fully and speedily following Sumner's advice, never 
ceased to ask for it, for he knew its significance. And 
Sumner, while almost always dissatisfied with Lincoln's 
cautious hesitation, never grew weary in giving his 
advice, for he never distrusted Lincoln's fidelity. 
Always agreed as to the ultimate end, they almost 
always differed as to times and means; but, while differ- 
ing, they firmly trusted, for they understood one another. 



224 CHARLES SUMNER. 

And thus their mutual respect grew into an affectionate 
friendship, which no clash of disagreeing opinions could 
break. Sumner loved to tell his friends, after Lincoln's 
death,— and I heard him relate it often, never without an 
expression of tenderness, — how at one time those who 
disliked and feared his intimacy with the President, and 
desired to see it disrupted, thought it was irreparably 
broken. It was at the close of Lincoln's first adminis- 
tration, in 18G5, when the President had proposed cer- 
tain measures of reconstruction, touching the State of 
Louisiana. 

The end of the session of Congress was near at hand, 
and the success of the bill depended on a vote of the 
Senate before the hour of adjournment on the 4th of 
March. Mr. Lincoln had the measure very much at 
heart. But Sumner opposed it, because it did not con- 
tain sufficient guarantees for the rights of the colored 
people, and by a parliamentary manoeuvre, simply con- 
suming time until the adjournment came, he with two or 
three other Senators succeeded in defeating it. Lincoln 
was reported to be deeply chagrined at Sumner's action, 
and the newspapers already announced that the breach 
between Lincoln and Sumner was complete, and could 
not be healed. But those who said so did not know 
the men. On the night of the 6th of March, two clays 
after Lincoln's second inauguration, the customary inau- 
guration ball was to take place. Sumner did not think 
of attending it. But towards evening he received a 
card from the President, which read thus: "Dear Mr. 
Sumner, unless you send me word to the contrary, I 
shall this evening call with my carriage at your house, 



EULOGY BY CATCL SCIIUEZ. 225 

to take you with me to the inauguration ball. Sin- 
cerely yours, Abraham Lincoln." Mr. Sumner, deeply 
touched, at once made up his mind to go to an inau- 
guration ball for the first time. Soon the carriage 
arrived, the President invited Sumner to take a seat in 
it with him, and Sumner found there Mrs. Lincoln and 
Mr. Colfax, the Speaker of the House of Representa- 
tives. Arrived at the ball-room, the President asked 
Mr. Sumner to offer his arm to Mrs. Lincoln ; and the 
astonished spectators, who had been made to believe 
that the breach between Lincoln and Sumner was irrep- 
arable, beheld the President's wife on the arm of the 
Senator, and the Senator, on that occasion of state, 
invited to take the seat of honor by the President's side. 
Not a word passed between them about their disagree- 
ment. 

The world became convinced that such a friendship 
between such men could not be broken by a mere 
honest difference of opinion. Abraham Lincoln, a man 
of sincere and profound convictions himself, esteemed 
and honored sincere and profound convictions in others. 
It was thus that Abraham Lincoln composed his quar- 
rels with his friends, and at his bedside, when he died. 
there was no mourner more deeply afflicted than 
Charles Sumner. 

Let me return to the year 1862. Long, incessant and 
arduous was Sumner's labor for emancipation. At last 
the great Proclamation, which sealed the fate of slavery, 
came, and no man had done more to bring it forth 

than he. 

Still, Charles Sumner thought his work far from 

29 



226 CHARLES SUMMER. 

accomplished. During the three years of Avar that fol- 
lowed, so full of vicissitudes, alarms and anxieties, he 
stood in the Senate and in the President's closet as the 
ever-watchful sentinel of freedom and equal rights. JS T o 
occasion eluded his grasp to push on the destruction of 
slavery, not only by sweeping decrees, but in detail, 
by pursuing it, as with a probing-iron, into every nook 
and corner of its existence. It was his sleepless care 
that every blow struck at the Rebellion should surely 
and heavily tell against slavery, and that every drop of 
American blood that was shed should surely be conse- 
crated to human freedom. He could not rest until 
assurance was made doubly sure, and I doubt whether 
our legislative history shows an example of equal watch- 
fulness, fidelity and devotion to a great object. Such 
was the character of Mr. Sumner's legislative activity 
during the war. 

As the Rebellion succumbed, new problems arose. 
To set upon their feet again States disorganized by 
insurrection and civil war ; to remodel a society which 
had been lifted out of its ancient hinges by the sudden 
change of its system of labor ; to protect the eman- 
cipated slaves against the old pretension of absolute 
control on the part of their former masters ; to guard 
society against the possible transgressions of a large 
multitude long held in slavery and ignorance and now 
suddenly set free ; so to lodge political power in this 
inflammable state of things as to prevent violent reac- 
tions and hostile collisions ; to lead social forces so dis- 
cordant into orderly and fruitful co-operation, and to 
infuse into communities, but recently rent by the most 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ. 227 

violent passions, a new spirit of loyal attachment to a 
common nationality,— this was certainly one of the most 
perplexing tasks ever imposed upon the statesmanship 
of any time and any country. 

But to Mr. Sumner's mind the problem of recon- 
struction did not appear perplexing at all. Believing, 
as he always did, that the Democratic idea, as he 
found it defined in the Declaration of Independence, 
"Human rights in their utmost expansion," contained 
an ultimately certain solution of all difficulties, he saw 
the principal aim to be reached by any reconstruction 
policy, in the investment of the emancipated slaves 
with all the rights and privileges of American citizen- 
ship. The complexity of the problem, the hazardous 
character of the experiment, never troubled him. And 
as, early in the war, he had for himself laid down 
the theory that, by the very act of rebellion, the insur- 
rectionary States had destroyed themselves as such, so 
he argued now, with assured consistency, that those 
States had relapsed into a territorial condition ; that 
the National Government had to fill the void by crea- 
tions of its own, and that in doing so the establish- 
ment of universal suffrage there was an unavoidable 
necessity. Thus he marched forward to the realization 
of his ideal, on the straightest line, and with the firm- 
ness of jorofound conviction. 

In the discussions which followed, he had the advan- 
tage of a man who knows exactly what he wants, and 
who is imperturbably, religiously convinced that he is 
right. But his constitutional theory, as well as the 
measures he proposed, found little favor in Congress. 



228 CHARLES SUMNER. 

The public mind struggled long against the results he 
had pointed out as inevitable. The whole power of 
President Johnson's administration was employed to 
lead the development of things in another direction. 
But through all the vacillations of public opinion, 
through all the perplexities in which Congress entangled 
itself, the very necessity of things seemed to press 
toward the ends which Sumner and those who thought 
like him had advocated from the beginning. 

At last, Mr. Sumner saw the fondest dreams of his 
life realized. Slavery was forever blotted out in this 
Republic by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. 
By the 14th the emancipated slaves were secured in 
their rights of citizenship before the law, and the 15th 
guaranteed to them the right to vote. 

It was, indeed, a most astonishing, a marvellous con- 
summation. What ten years before not even the most 
sanguine would have ventured to anticipate, what only 
the profound faith of the devotee could believe pos- 
sible, was done. And no man had a better right than 
Chaules Sumner to claim for himself a pre-eminent 
share in that great consummation. He had, indeed, 
not been the originator of most of the practical meas- 
ures of legislation by which such results were reached. 
He had even combated some of them as in conflict 
with his theories. He did not possess the peculiar abil- 
ity of constructing policies in detail, of taking account 
of existing circumstances and advantage of opportuni- 
ties. But he had resolutely marched ahead of public 
opinion in marking the ends to be reached. Nobody 
had done more to inspire and strengthen the moral spirit 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUKZ. 229 

of the anti-slavery cause. He stood foremost among 
the propelling, driving forces which pushed on the 
great work with undaunted courage, untiring effort, 
irresistible energy and religious devotion. No man's 
singleness of purpose, fidelity and faith surpassed his, 
and when by future generations the names are calk. I 
which are inseparably united with the deliverance of 
the American Republic from slavery, no name will be 
called before his own. 

While the championship of human rights is his first 
title to fame, I should be unjust to his merit, did I omit 
to mention the services he rendered on another field of 
action. When, in 1861, the secession of the Southern 
States left the anti-slavery party in the* majority in the 
Senate of the United States, Charles Sumner was 
placed as chairman at the head of the Committee on 
Foreign Relations. It was a high distinction, and no 
selection could have been more fortunate. Without be- 
littling others, it may be said that of the many able men 
then and since in the Senate, Mr. Sumner was by far the 
fittest for that responsible position. He had ever since 
his college days made international law a special and 
favorite study, and was perfectly familiar with its prin- 
ciples, the history of its development, and its literature. 
Nothing of importance had ever been published on that 
subject in any language that had escaped his attention. 
His knowledge of history was uncommonly extensive 
and accurate ; all the leading international law cases, 
with their incidents in detail, their theories and settle- 
ments, he had at his fingers' ends ; and to his last day 
he remained indefatigable in inquiry. Moreover, he 



230 CHARLES SUMNER. 

had seen the world; he had studied the institutions 
and policies of foreign countries, on their own soil, 
aided by his personal intercourse with many of their 
leading statesmen, not a few of whom remained in 
friendly correspondence with him ever since their first 
acquaintance. 

No public man had a higher appreciation of the 
position, dignity, and interests of his own country, 
and no one was less liable than he to be carried away 
or driven to hasty and ill-considered steps, by excited 
popular clamor. He was ever strenuous in assertins: 
our own rights, while his sense of justice did not per- 
mit him to be regardless of the rights of other nations. 
His abhorrence of the barbarities of war, and his ardent 
love of peace, led him earnestly to seek for every inter- 
national difference a peaceable solution ; and where no 
settlement could be reached by the direct negotiations 
of diplomacy, the idea of arbitration was always upper- 
most in his mind. He desired to raise the Republic 
to the high office of a missionary of peace and civiliza- 
tion in the world. He was, therefore, not only an un- 
commonly well-informed, enlightened and experienced, 
but also an eminently conservative, cautious and safe 
counsellor ; and the few instances in which he appeared 
more impulsive than prudent will, upon candid inves- 
tigation, not impugn this statement. I am far from 
claiming for him absolute correctness of view, and 
infallibility of judgment in every case; but taking his 
whole career together, it may well be doubted, whether 
in the whole history of the Eepublic, the Senate of the 
United States ever possessed a chairman of the Com- 



EULOGY BT CAEL SCHURZ. 231 

mittee on Foreign Relations who united in himself, in 
such completeness, the qualifications necessary and desir- 
able for the important and delicate duties of that posi- 
tion. This may sound like the extravagant praise of a 
personal friend ; but it is the sober opinion of men 
most competent to judge, that it does not go beyond 
his merits. 

His qualities were soon put to the test. Early in 
the war one of the gallant captains in our navy arrested 
the British mail steamer Trent, running from one neu- 
tral port to another, on the high seas, and took from 
her by force Mason and Slidell, two emissaries of the 
Confederate Government, and their despatches. The 
people of the North loudly applauded the act. The 
Secretary of the Navy approved it. The House of Rep- 
resentatives commended it in resolutions. Even in the 
Senate a majority seemed inclined to stand by it. The 
British Government, in a threatening tone, demanded 
the instant restitution of the prisoners, and an apology. 
The people of the North responded with a shout of indig- 
nation at British insolence. The excitement seemed 
irrepressible. Those in quest of popularity saw a chance 
to win it easily by bellicose declamation. 

But among those who felt the weight of responsi- 
bility more moderate counsels prevailed. The Govern- 
ment wisely resolved to surrender the prisoners, and 
peace with Great Britain was preserved. 

It was Mr. Sumner who threw himself into the 
breach against the violent drift of public opinion. In a 
speech in the Senate, no less remarkable for patriotic 
spirit than legal learning and ingenious and irresistible 



232 CHARLES SUMNER. 

argument, he justified the surrender of the prisoners, 
not on the ground that during our struggle with the 
Rebellion we were not in a condition to so to war 
with Great Britain, but on the higher ground that the 
surrender, demanded by Great Britain in violation of 
her own traditional pretensions as to the rights of 
belligerents, was in perfect accord with American prece- 
dent, and the advanced principles of our Government 
concerning the rights of neutrals, and that this very 
act, therefore, would for all time constitute an addi- 
tional and most conspicuous precedent, to aid in the 
establishment of more humane rules for the protection 
of the rights of neutrals and the mitigation of the 
injustice and barbarity attending maritime war. 

The success of this argument was complete. It 
turned the tide of public opinion. It convinced the 
American people that this was not an act of pusil- 
lanimity, but of justice ; not a humiliation of the 
Republic, but a noble vindication of her time-honored 
principles, and a service rendered to the cause of 
progress. 

Other complications followed. The interference of 
European powers in Mexico came. Excited demands 
for intervention on our part were made in the Senate, 
and Mr. Sumner, trusting that the victory of the 
Union over the Rebellion would bring on the deliver- 
ance of Mexico in its train, with signal moderation 
and tact prevented the agitation of so dangerous a 
policy. It is needless to mention the many subsequent 
instances in which his wisdom and skill rendered the 
Republic similar service. 



EULOGY BY CAEL SCIIURZ. 233 

Only one of his acts provoked comment in foreign 
countries calculated to impair the high esteem in which 
his name was universally held there. It was his 
speech on the Alabama case, preceding the rejection 
by the Senate of the Clarendon-Johnson treaty. Be 
was accused of having yielded to a vulgar impulse of 
demagogism in nattering and exciting, by unfair state- 
ments and extravagant demands, the grudge the Ameri- 
can people might bear to England. No accusation could 
possibly be more unjust, and I know whereof I speak. 
Mr. Sumner loved England— had loved her as long as 
he lived— from a feeling of consanguinity, for the treas- 
ures of literature she had given to the world, for the 
services she had rendered to human freedom, for the 
blows she had struck at slavery, for the sturdy work 
she had done for the cause of progress and civilization, 
for the many dear friends he had among her citizens. 
Such was his impulse, and no man was more incapable 
of pandering to a vulgar prejudice. 

I will not deny that as to our differences with Greai 
Britain he was not entirely free from personal feeling. 
That the England he loved so well,— the England of 
Clarkson and Wilberforce, of Cobden and Bright; the 
England to whom he had looked as the champion of 
the anti-slavery cause in the world, — should make such 
hot haste to recognize, nay, as he termed it, to set up, 
on the seas, as a belligerent, that Rebellion, whose 
avowed object it was to found an empire of slavery, 
and to aid that Rebellion by every means short of open 
war against the Union, — that was a shock to his feel- 
ings which he felt like a betrayal of friendship. And 



30 



234 CHAELES SUMMER. 

yet while that feeling appeared in the warmth of his 
language, it did not dictate his policy. I will not dis- 
cuss here the correctness of his opinions as to what he 
styled the precipitate and unjustifiable recognition of 
Southern belligerency, or his theory of consequential 
damages. What he desired to accomplish was, not to 
extort from England a large sum of money, but to put 
our grievance in the strongest light; to convince Eng- 
land of the great wrong she had inflicted upou us, and 
thus to prepare a composition, which, consisting more 
in the settlement of great principles and rules of inter- 
national law to govern the future intercourse of nations, 
than in the payment of large damages, would remove 
all questions of difference, and serve to restore and con- 
firm a friendship which ought never to have been inter- 
rupted. 

When, finally, the Treaty of Washington was nego- 
tiated by the Joint High Commission, Mr. Sumner, 
although thinking that more might have been accom- 
plished, did not only not oppose that treaty, but ac- 
tively aided in securing for it the consent of the Senate. 
Nothing would have been more painful to him than a 
continuance of unfriendly relations with Great Britain. 
Had there been danger of war, no man's voice would 
have pleaded with more fervor to avert such a calam- 
ity. He gave ample proof that he did not desire any 
personal opinions to stand in the way of a settlement, 
and if that settlement, which he willingly supported, 
did not in every respect satisfy him, it was because he 
desired to put the future relations of the two countries 
upon a still safer and more enduring basis. 



EULOGY BY CARL SCIIURZ. 235 

No statesman ever took part in the direction of our 
foreign affairs who so completely identified himself with 
the most advanced, humane and progressive principles. 
Ever jealous of the honor of his country, he sought to 
elevate that honor by a policy scrupulously just to the 
strong, and generous to the weak. A profound lover 
of peace, he faithfully advocated arbitration as a sub- 
stitute for war. The barbarities of war he constantly 
labored to mitigate. In the hottest days of our civil 
conflict he protested against the issue of letters of 
marque and reprisal ; he never lost an opportunity to 
condemn privateering as a barbarous practice, and he 
even went so far as to designate the system of prize- 
money as inconsistent with our enlightened civilization. 
In some respects, his principles were in advance of 
our time ; but surely the day will come when this 
Republic, marching in the front of progress, will adopt 
them as her own, and remember their champion with 
pride. 

I now approach the last period of his life, which 
brought to him new and bitter struggles. 

The work of reconstruction completed, he felt that 
three objects still demanded new efforts. One was 
that the colored race should be protected by national 
legislation against degrading discrimination, in the 
enjoyment of facilities of education, travel and pleas- 
ure, such as stand under the control of law; and this 
object he embodied in his Civil Rights Bill, of which 
he was the mover and especial champion. The second 
was, that generous reconciliation should wipe out the 
lingering animosities of past conflicts and reunite in 



236 CHARLES SUMMER. 

new bonds of brotherhood all those who had been 
divided. And the third was, that the government 
should be restored to the purity and high tone of its 
earlier days, and that from its new birth the Republic 
should issue with a new lustre of moral greatness, to 
lead its children to a higher perfection of manhood, 
and to be a shining example and beacon-light to all 
the nations of the earth. 

This accomplished, he often said to his friends he 
would be content to lie down and die ; but death over- 
took him before he was thus content, and before death 
came he was destined to taste more of the bitterness 
of life. 

His Civil Rights Bill he pressed with unflagging per- 
severance, against an opposition which stood upon the 
ground that the objects his measure contemplated, 
belonged, under the Constitution, to the jurisdiction of 
the States ; that the colored people, armed with the 
ballot, possessed the necessary means to provide for 
their own security, and that the progressive develop- 
ment of public sentiment would afford to them greater 
protection than could be given by national legislation 
of questionable constitutionality. 

The pursuit of the other objects brought upon him 
experiences of a painful nature. I have to speak of 
his disagreement with the administration of President 
Grant and with his party. Nothing could be farther 
from my desire than to re-open, on a solemn occasion 
like this, those bitter conflicts which are still so fresh 
in our minds, and to assail any living man in the 
name of the dead. Were it my purpose to attack, I 



EULOGY BY GAEL SCHUEZ. 2'.\7 

should do so in my own name and choose the place 
where I can be answered,-not this. But I have a 
duty to perform; it is to set forth in the light of 
truth the motives of the dead before the living. I 
knew Charles Sumner's motives well. We stood 
together shoulder to shoulder in many a hard contest 
We were friends, and between us passed those confi- 
dences which only intimate friendship knows. There- 
fore I can truly say that I knew his motives well. 

The civil war had greatly changed the country, and 
left many problems behind it, requiring again that 
building, organizing, constructive kind of statesmanship 
which I described as presiding over the Republic in its 
earlier history. For a solution of many of those prob- 
lems Mr. Sumner's mind was little fitted, and he 
naturally turned to those which appealed to his moral 
nature. No great civil war has ever passed over any 
country, especially a republic, without producing wide- 
spread and dangerous demoralization and corruption, 
not only in the government, but among the people. 
In such times the sordid instincts of human nature 
develop themselves to unusual recklessness under the 
guise of patriotism. The ascendancy of no political 
party in a republic has ever been long maintained 
without tempting many of its members to avail them- 
selves for their selfish advantage of the opportunities 
of power and party protection, and without attracting 
a horde of camp followers, professing principle, but 
meaning spoil. It has always been so, and the Ameri- 
can Republic has not escaped the experience. 

Neither Mr. Sumner nor many others could in our 



238 CHARLES SUMNER. 

circumstances close their eyes to this fact. He recog- 
nized the danger early, and already, in 1864, he intro- 
duced in the Senate a bill for the reform of the civil 
service, crude in its detail, but embodying correct 
principles. Thus he may be said to have been the 
earliest pioneer of the Civil Service Reform movement. ' 

The evil grew under President Johnson's administra- 
tion, and ever since it has been cropping out, not only 
drawn to light by the efforts of the opposition, but 
voluntarily and involuntarily, by members of the ruling 
party itself. There were in it many men who confessed 
to themselves the urgent necessity of meeting the grow- 
ing danger. 

Mr. Sumner could not be silent. He cherished in 
his mind a high ideal of what this Republic and its 
government should be : a government composed of the 
best and wisest of the land ; animated by none but the 
highest and most patriotic aspirations ; yielding to no 
selfish impulse ; noble in its tone and character ; setting 
its face sternly against all wrong and injustice ; pre- 
senting in its whole being to the American people a 
shining example of purity and lofty public spirit. Mr. 
Sumner was proud of his country ; there was no 
prouder American in the land. He felt in himself the 
whole dignity of the Republic. And when he saw any- 
thing that lowered the dignity of the Republic and the 
character of its government, he felt it as he would have 
felt a personal offence. He criticised it, he denounced 
it, he remonstrated against it, for he could not do 
otherwise. He did so, frequently and without hesitation 
and reserve, when Mr. Lincoln was President. He 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ. 



230 



continued to do so ever since, the more loudly, the 
more difficult it was to make himself heard. It was 
his nature; he felt it to be his right as a citizen; he 
esteemed it his duty as a Senator. 

That, and no other, was the motive which impelled 
him. The rupture with the administration was brought 
on by his opposition to the Santo Domingo Treaty 
In the reasons upon which that opposition was based, 
I know that personal feeling had no share. They were 
patriotic reasons, publicly and candidly expressed, and 
it seems they were appreciated by a very large portion 
of the American people. It has been said that he 
provoked the resentment of the President by first 
promising to support that treaty and then opposing it, 
thus rendering himself guilty of an act of duplicity.' 
He has publicly denied the justice of the charge and 
stated the facts as they stood in his memory. I am 
willing to make the fullest allowance for the possibility 
of a misapprehension of words. But I affirm, also, 
that no living man who knew Mr. Sumner well, will 
hesitate a moment to pronounce the charge of duplicity 
as founded on the most radical of misapprehensions. 
An act of duplicity on his part was simply a moral 
impossibility. It was absolutely foreign to his nature. 
Whatever may have been the defects of his character, 
he never knowingly deceived a human being. There 
was in him not the faintest shadow of dissimulation, 
disguise or trickery. Not one of his words ever had 
the purpose of a double meaning, not one of his acts a 
hidden aim. His likes and dislikes, his approval and 
disapproval, as soon as they were clear to his own con- 



240 



CHARLES SUMNER. 



sciousness, appeared before the world in the open light 
of noonday. His frankness was so unbounded, his 
candor so entire, his ingenuousness so childlike, that 
he lacked even the discretion of ordinary prudence. 
He was almost incapable of moderating his feelings, 
of toning down his meaning in the expression. When 
he might have gained a point by indirection, he would 
not have done so, because he could not. He was one 
of those who, when they attack, attack always in front 
and in broad daylight. The night surprise and the 
flank march were absolutely foreign to his tactics, 
because they were incompatible with his nature. I 
have known many men in my life, but never one 
who was less capable of a perfidious act or an artful 
profession. 

Call him a vain, an impracticable, an imperious man, 
if you will, but American history does not mention the 
name of one, of whom with greater justice it can be 
said that he was a true man. 

The same candor and purity of motives which 
prompted and characterized his opposition to the 
Santo Domingo scheme, prompted and characterized 
the attacks upon the administration which followed. 
The charges he made, and the arguments with which 
he supported them, I feel not called upon to enumer- 
ate. Whether and how far they were correct or erro- 
neous, just or unjust, important or unimportant, the 
judgment of history will determine. May that judg- 
ment be just and fair to us all. But this I can affirm 
to-day, for I know it : Chaeles Sumner never made 
a charge which he did not himself firmly, religiously 



EULOGY BY GAEL SCHUEZ. 241 

believe to be true. Neither did he condemn those he 
attacked for anything he did not firmly, religiously 
believe to be wrong. And while attacking those in 
power for what he considered wrong, he was always 
ready to support them in all he considered rieht. 
After all he has said of the President, he would to-day, 
if he lived, conscientiously, cordially, joyously aid in 
sustaining the President's recent veto on an act of 
financial legislation which threatened to inflict a deep 
injury on the character, as well as the true interests of 
the American people. 

But at the time of which I speak, all he said was so 
deeply grounded in his feeling and conscience, that it 
was for him difficult to understand how others could 
form different conclusions. When, shortly before the 
National Republican Convention of 1872, he had deliv- 
ered in the Senate that fierce philippic for which he 
has been censured so much, he turned to me with the 
question, whether I did not think that the statements 
and arguments he had produced would certainly exercise 
a decisive influence on the action of that convention. 
I replied that I thought it would not. He was greatly 
astonished, — not as if he indulged in the delusion that 
his personal word would have such authoritative weight, 
but it seemed impossible to him that opinions which in 
him had risen to the full strength of overruling convic- 
tion, that a feeling of duty which in him had grown so 
solemn and irresistible as to inspire him to any risk 
and sacrifice, ever so painful, should fall powerless al 
the feet of a party which so long had followed inspira- 
tions kindred to his own. Such was the ingenuousness 

31 



242 CHARLES SUMNER. 

of his nature ; such his faith in the rectitude of his own 
cause. The result of his effort is a matter of history. 
After the Philadelphia Convention, and not until then, 
he resolved to oppose his party, and to join a movement 
which was doomed to defeat. He obeyed his sense of 
right and duty at a terrible sacrifice. 

He had been one of the great chiefs of his party, by 
many regarded as the greatest. He had stood in the 
Senate as a mighty monument of the struggles and vic- 
tories of the anti-slavery cause. He had been a martyr 
of his earnestness. By all Republicans he had been 
looked up to with respect, by many with veneration. 
He had been the idol of the people of his State. All 
this was suddenly changed. Already, at the time of 
his opposition to the Santo Domingo scheme, he had 
been deprived of his place at the head of the Senate 
Committee on Foreign Relations, which he had held so 
long, and with so much honor to the Republic and to 
himself. But few know how sharp a pang it gave to 
his heart, this removal, which he felt as the wanton 
degradation of a faithful servant who was conscious of 
only doing his duty. 

But, when he had pronounced against the candidates 
of his party, worse experiences were for him in store. 
Journals which for years had been full of his praise now 
assailed him with remorseless ridicule and vituperation, 
questioning even his past services and calling him a 
traitor. Men who had been proud of his acquaintance 
turned away their heads when they met him in the 
street. Former flatterers eagerly covered his name with 
slander. Many of those who had been his associates 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUBZ. 243 

in the struggle for freedom sullenly withdrew fro* him 
their friendship. Even some men of the colored race, 
for whose elevation he had labored with a fidelity and 
devotion equalled by few and surpassed by none, joined 
in the chorus of denunciation. Oh, how keenly he felt 
it! And, as if the cruel malice of ingratitude and the 
unsparing persecution of infuriated partisanship had not 
been enough, another enemy came upon him, threaten- 
ing his very life. It was a new attack of that disease 
which, for many years, from time to time, had pros- 
trated him with the acutest suffering, and which shortly 
should lay him low. It admonished him that every 
word he spoke might be his last. He found himself 
forced to leave the field of a contest in which not only 
his principles of right, but even his good name, earned 
by so many years of faithful effort, was at stake. He 
possessed no longer the elastic spirit of youth, and the 
prospect of new struggles had ceased to charm him. 
His hair had grown gray with years, ' and he had 
reached that age when a statesman begins to love the 
thought of reposing his head upon the pillow of assured 
public esteem. Even the sweet comfort of that sanc- 
tuary was denied him, in which the voice of wife and 
child would have said : Rest here, for whatever the 
world may say, we know that you are good and faith- 
ful and noble. Only the friends of his youth, who 
knew him best, .surrounded him with never-n\i<>"in"- 
confidence and love, and those of his companions-in- 
arms, who knew him also, and who were true to him 
as they were true to their common cause. Thus lie 
stood in the presidential campaign of 1872. 



24A CHARLES SUMNER. 

It is at such a moment of bitter ordeal that an honest 
public man feels the impulse of retiring within himself; 
to examine with scrupulous care the quality of his own 
motives ; anxiously to inquire whether he is really right 
in his opinions and objects when so many old friends 
say that he is wrong ; and then, after such a review at 
the hand of conscience and duty, to form anew his 
conclusions without bias, and to proclaim them without 
fear. This he did. 

He had desired, and as he wrote, "he had confidently 
hoped, on returning home from Washington, to meet his 
fellow-citizens in Faneuil Hall, that venerable forum, 
and to speak once more on great questions involving 
the welfare of the country, but recurring symptoms of 
a painful character warned him against such an attempt." 
The speech he had intended to pronounce, but could 
not, he left in a written form for publication, and went 
to Europe, seeking rest, uncertain whether he Avould 
ever return alive. In it he reiterated all the reasons 
Avhich had forced him to oppose the administration and 
the candidates of his party. They were unchanged. 
Then followed an earnest and pathetic plea for universal 
peace and reconciliation. He showed how necessary 
the revival of fraternal feeling was, not only for the 
prosperity and physical well-being, but for the moral 
elevation of the American people and for the safety and 
greatness of the Republic . He gave words to his pro- 
found sympathy with the Southern States in their 
misfortunes. Indignantly he declared, that " second 
only to the wide-spread devastations of war were the 
robberies to which those States had been subjected, 



EULOGY BY CARL SCI1URZ. 24:5 

under au administration calling itself Republican, and 
with local governments deriving their animating impulse 
from the party in power; and that the people in these 
communities would have been less than men, if, sinking 
under the intolerable burden, they did not turn for 
help to a new party, promising honesty and reform." 

He recalled the reiterated expression he had given to 
his sentiments, ever since the breaking out of the war; 
and closed the recital with these words : " Such is the 
simple and harmonious record, showing how from the 
beginning I was devoted to peace, how constantly I 
longed for reconciliation ; how, with every measure of 
equal rights, this longing found utterance ; how it 
became an essential part of my life ; how I discarded 
all idea of vengeance and punishment ; how reconstruc- 
tion was, to my mind, a transition period, and how 
earnestly I looked forward to the day when, after the 
recognition of equal rights, the Republic should again 
be one in reality as in name. If there are any Avho 
ever maintained a policy of hate, I never was so 
minded ; and now in protesting against any such policy, 
I act only in obedience to the irresistible promptings of 
my soul." 

And well might he speak thus. Let the people of 
the South hear what I say. They were wont to see in 
him only the implacable assailant of that peculiar insti- 
tution, which was so closely interwoven with all their 
traditions and habits of life, that they regarded it as 
the very basis of their social and moral existence, as 
the source of their prosperity and greatness ; the unspar- 
ing enemy of the Rebellion, whose success was to realize 



246 CHARLES SUMXER. 

the fondest dreams of their ambition : the never-restinjr 
advocate of the grant of suffrage to the colored people, 
which they thought to be designed for their own deg- 
radation. Thus they had persuaded themselves that 
Charles Sumner was to them a relentless foe. 

They did not know, as others knew, that he whom 
they cursed as their persecutor had a heart beating 
warmly and tenderly for all the human kind ; that the 
efforts of his life were unceasingly devoted to those 
whom he thought most in need of aid ; that in the 
slave he saw only the human soul, with its eternal 
title to the same right and dignity which he himself 
enjoyed ; that he assailed the slavemaster only as the 
oppressor who denied that right ; and that the former 
oppressor ceasing to be such, and being oppressed him- 
self, could surely count upon the fulness of his active 
sympathy freely given in the spirit of equal justice ; 
that it was the religion of his life to protect the weak 
and oppressed against the strong, no matter who were 
the weak and oppressed, no matter who were the strong. 
They knew not, that while fiercely combating a wrong, 
there was not in his heart a spark of hatred even for 
the wrong-doer who hated him. They knew not how 
well he deserved the high homage involuntarily paid to 
him by a cartoon during the late presidential campaign 
— a cartoon, designed to be malicious, which repre- 
sented Charles Sumner strewing flowers on the grave 
of Preston Brooks. They foresaw not, that to welcome 
them back to the full brotherhood of the American 
people, he would expose himself to a blow, wounding 
him as cruelly as that which years ago levelled him to 



EULOGY BY GAEL SCHURZ. 247 

the ground in the Senate Chamber. And this new 
blow he received for them. The people of the South 
ignored this long. Now that he is gone, let then 
never forget it. 

From Europe Mr. Sumner returned late in the fall 
of 1872, much strengthened, but far from being well. 
At the opening of the session he reintroduced two meas- 
ures which, as he thought, should complete the record 
of his political life. One was his Civil Eights Bill, which 
had failed in the last Congress, and the other, a reso- 
lution providing that the names of the battles won over 
fellow-citizens in the war of the Rebellion, should be 
removed from the regimental colors of the army, and 
from the army register. It was in substance only a 
repetition of a resolution which he had introduced ten 
years before, in 1862, during the war, when the first 
names of victories were put on American battle-flags. 
This resolution called forth a new storm against him. 
It was denounced as an insult to the heroic soldiers of 
the Union, and a degradation of their victories and 
well-earned laurels. It was condemned as an unpatri- 
otic act. 

Charles Sumner insult the soldiers who had spilled 
their blood in a war for human rights ! Charles Sum- 
ner degrade victories and depreciate laurels won for 
the cause of universal freedom ! How strange an impu- 
tation ! 

Let the dead man have a hearing. This was his 
thought : No civilized nation, from the republics of 
antiquity down to our days, ever thought it wise or 
patriotic to preserve in conspicuous and durable form 



248 CHARLES StBDTER. 

the mementos of victories won over fellow-citizens in 
civil war. Why not? Because every citizen should 
feel himself with all others as the child of a common 
country, and not as a defeated foe. All civilized gov- 
ernments of our days have instinctively followed the 
same dictate of wisdom and patriotism. The Irishman, 
when fighting for old England at Waterloo, was not to 
behold on the red cross floating above him the name 
of the Boyne. The Scotch Highlander, when standing 
in the trenches of Sebastopol, was not by the colors of 
his regiment to be reminded of Culloden. No French 
soldier at Austerlitz or Solferino had to read upon the 
tricolor any reminiscence of the Vendee. No Hunga- 
rian at Sadowa was taunted by any Austrian banner 
with the surrender of Villagos. No German regiment, 
from Saxony or Hanover, charging under the iron hail 
of Gravelotte, was made to remember by words written 
on a Prussian standard that the black eagle had con- 
quered them at Koniggratz and Langensalza. Should 
the son of South Carolina, when at some future day 
defending the Republic against some foreign foe, be 
reminded by an inscription on the colors floating over 
him, that under this flag the gun was fired that killed 
his father at Gettysburg? Should this great and 
enlightened Republic, proud of standing in the front 
of human progress, be less wise, less large-hearted, 
than the ancients were two thousand years ago, and 
the kingly governments of Europe are to-day ? Let the 
battle-flags of the brave volunteers, which they brought 
home from the war with the glorious record of their 
victories, be preserved intact as a proud ornament of 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ. 249 

our State-houses and armories. But let the colors of 
the army, under which the sons of all the States are 
to meet and mingle in common patriotism, speak of 
nothing but union,— not a union of conquerors and 
conquered, but a union which is the mother of all, 
equally tender to all, knowing of nothing but equality, 
peace and love among her children. Do you want con- 
spicuous mementos of your victories ? They arc written 
upon the dusky brow of every freeman who was once a 
slave ; they are written on the gate-posts of a restored 
Union ; and the most glorious of all will be written on 
the faces of a contented people, reunited in common 
national pride. 

Such were the sentiments which inspired that reso- 
lution. Such were the sentiments which called forth a 
storm of obloquy. Such were the sentiments for which 
the Legislature of Massachusetts passed a solemn reso- 
lution of censure upon Charles Sumner, — Massachu- 
setts, his own Massachusetts, whom he loved so ardently 
with a filial love, — of whom he was so proud, Avho had 
honored him so much in days gone by, and whom he 
had so long and so faithfully labored to serve and to 
honor! Oh, those were evil days, that winter; days 
sad and dark, when he sat there in his lonesome cham- 
ber, unable to leave it, the world moving around him, 
and in it so much that was hostile, — and he prostrated 
by the tormenting disease, which had returned with 
fresh violence, — unable to defend himself, — and with 
this bitter arrow in his heart ! Why was not that reso- 
lution held up to scorn and vituperation as an insult 
to the brave, and an unpatriotic act— why was he not 

32 



250 CHARLES SUMNER. 

attacked and condemned for it when he first offered it, 
ten years before, and when he was in the fulness of 
manhood and power? If not then, why now? Why 
now? I shall never forget the melancholy hours I sat 
with him, seeking to lift him up with cheering words, 
and he, — his frame for hours racked with excruciatino- 

o 
pain, and then exhausted with suffering, — gloomily 

brooding over the thought that he might die so ! 

How thankful I am, how thankful every human soul 

in Massachusetts, how thankful every American must 

be, that he did not die then ! — and, indeed, more than 

once, death seemed to be knocking at his door. How 

thankful that he was spared to see the day, when the 

people by striking developments were convinced that 

those who had acted as he did, had after all not been 

impelled by mere whims of vanity, or reckless ambition, 

or sinister designs, but had good and patriotic reasons 

for what they did; — when the heart of Massachusetts 

came back to him full of the old love and confidence, 

assuring him that he would again be her chosen son 

for her representative seat in the House of States ; — 

when the lawgivers of the old Commonwealth, obeying 

an irresistible impulse of justice, wiped away from the 

records of the Legislature, and from the fair name of 

the State, that resolution of censure which had stuno- 

o 

him so deeply,— and when returning vigor lifted him 
up, and a new sunburst of hope illumined his life ! 
How thankful we all are that he lived that one year 
longer ! 

And yet, have you thought of it, if he had died in 
those dark days, when so many clouds hung over him, 



EULOGY BY CAKL SCIIURZ. 25] 

—would not then the much vilified man have been the 
same Charles Sumner, whose death but one year later 
afflicted millions of hearts with a pang of bereavement, 
whose praise is now on every lip for the purity of his 
life, for his fidelity to great principles, and for the 
loftiness of his patriotism? Was he not a year ago 
the same, the same in purpose, the same in principle, 
the same in character? What had he done then that 
so many who praise him to-day should have then dis- 
owned him? See what he had done. He had simply 
been true to his convictions of duty. He had approved 
and urged what he thought right, he had attacked and 
opposed what he thought wrong. To his convictions 
of duty he had sacrificed political associations mosl 
dear to him, the security of his position of which he 
was proud. For his convictions of duty he had stood 
up against those more powerful than he ; he had exposed 
himself to reproach, obloquy and persecution. Had he 
not done so, he would not have been the man you 
praise to-day; and yet for doing so he was cried down 
but yesterday. He had lived up to the great word he 
spoke when he entered the Senate : " The slave < >f 
principle, I call no party master." That declaration 
was greeted with applause, and when, true to his word, 
he refused to call a party master, the act was covered 
with reproach. 

The spirit impelling him to do so was the sain.' 
conscience which urged him to break away from the 
powerful party which controlled his State in the days 
of Daniel Webster, and to join a feeble minority, which 
stood up for freedom; to throw away the favor and 



252 CHARLES SUMMER. 

defy the power of the wealthy and refined, in order to 
plead the cause of the down-trodden and degraded ; to 
stand up against the slave-power in Congress with a 
courage never surpassed ; to attack the prejudice of 
birth and religion, and to plead fearlessly for the rights 
of the foreign-born citizen at a time when the know- 
nothing movement was controlling his State and might 
have defeated his own re-election to the Senate ; to 
advocate emancipation when others trembled with fear ; 
to march ahead of his followers, when they were afraid 
to follow ; to rise up alone for what he thought right, 
when others would not rise with him. It was that 
brave spirit which does everything, defies everything, 
risks everything, sacrifices everything, comfort, society, 
party, popular support, station of honor, prospects, for 
sense of right and conviction of duty. That is it for 
which you honored him long, for which you reproached 
him yesterday, and for which you honor him again 
to-day, and will honor him forever. 

Ah, what a lesson is this for the American people, — 
a lesson learned so often, and, alas ! forgotten almost 
as often as it is learned ! Is it well to discourage, to 
proscribe in your public men that independent spirit 
which will boldly assert a conscientious sense of duty, 
even against the behests of power or party? Is it well 
to teach them that they must serve the command and 
interest of party, even at the price of conscience, or 
they must be crushed under its heel, whatever their 
past service, whatever their ability, whatever their 
character may be? Is it well to make them believe 
that he who dares to be himself must be hunted as a 



EULOGY BY CAEL SCHURZ. 253 

political outlaw, who will find justice only when he is 
dead? That would have been the sad moral of his 
death, had Charles Sumner died a year ago. 

Let the American people never forget that it has 
always been the independent spirit, the all-defying 
sense of duty which broke the way for every great 
progressive movement since mankind has a history; 
which gave the American Colonies their sovereignty and 
made this great Republic ; which defied the power of 
slavery, and made this a Republic of freemen ; and 
which — who knows — may again be needed some day 
to defy the power of ignorance, to arrest the inroads 
of corruption, or to break the subtle tyranny of organ- 
ization in order to preserve this as a Republic ! And 
therefore let no man understand me as offering what I 
have said about Mr. Sumner's course, during the last 
period of his life, as an apology for what he did. He 
was right before his own conscience, and needs no 
apology. Woe to the Republic when it looks in vain 
for the men who seek the truth without prejudice and 
speak the truth without fear, as they understand it, no 
matter whether the world be willing to listen or not! 
Alas for the generation that would put such men into 
their graves with the poor boon of an apology for what 
was in them noblest and best! Who will not agree 
that, had power or partisan spirit, which persecuted 
him because he followed higher aims than party interest, 
ever succeeded in subjugating and moulding him after 
its fashion, against his conscience, against his conviction 
of duty, against his sense of right, he would have sunk 
into his grave a miserable ruin of his great self, 



254 CHARLES SUMNER. 

wrecked in his moral nature, deserving only a tear of 
pity? For he was great and useful only because he 
dared to be himself all the days of his life ; and for 
this you have, when he died, put the laurel upon his 
brow ! 

From the coffin which hides his body, Charles Sum- 
ner now rises up before our eyes an historic character. 
Let us look at him once more. His life lies before us 
like an open book which contains no double meanings, 
no crooked passages, no mysteries, no concealments. 
It is clear as crystal. 

Even his warmest friend will not see in it the model 
of perfect statesmanship ; not that eagle glance which, 
from a lofty eminence, at one sweep surveys the whole 
field on which by labor, thought, strife, accommodation, 
impulse, restraint, slow and rapid movement, the des- 
tinies of a nation are worked out, — and which, while 
surveying the whole, yet observes and penetrates the 
fitness and working of every detail of the great ma- 
chinery ; — not that ever calm and steady and self-con- 
trolling good sense, which judges existing things just 
as they are, and existing forces just as to what they 
can accomplish, and while instructing, conciliating, per- 
suading and moulding those forces, and guiding them 
on toward an ideal end, correctly estimates comparative 
good and comparative evil, and impels or restrains as 
that estimate may command. That is the true genius 
of statesmanship, fitting all times, all circumstances, 
and all great objects to be reached by political action. 

Mr. Sumner's natural abilities were not of the very 
first order ; but they were supplemented by acquired 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUEZ. 255 

abilities of most remarkable power. His mind was qoI 
apt to invent and create by inspiration ; it produced by 
study and work. Neither bad his mind superior con- 
structive capacity. When he desired to originate a 
measure of legislation, he scarcely ever elaborated its 
practical detail ; he usually threw his idea into the form 
of a resolution, or a bill giving in the main his purpose 
only, and then he advanced to the discussion of the 
principles involved. It was difficult for him to look at 
a question or problem from more than one point of view, 
and to comprehend its different bearings, its complex 
relations with other questions or problems ; and to that 
one point of view he was apt to subject all other con- 
siderations. He not only thought, but he did not hesi- 
tate to say that all construction of the Constitution must 
be subservient to the supreme duty of giving the amplest 
protection to the natural rights of man by direct national 
legislation. He was not free from that dangerous ten- 
dency to forget the limits which bound the legitimate 
range of legislative and governmental action. On 
economical questions his views were enlightened and 
thoroughly consistent. He had studied such subjects 
more than is commonly supposed. It was one of his 
last regrets that his health did not permit him to make 
a speech in favor of an early resumption of specie pay- 
ments. On matters of international law and foreign 
affairs he was the recognized authority of the Senate. 

But some of his very shortcomings served to increase 
that peculiar power which he exerted in his time. His 
public life was thrown into a period of a revolutionary 
character, when one great end was the self-imposed 



256 CHARLES SUMNER. 

subject of a universal struggle, a struggle "which was 
not made, not manufactured by the design of men, but 
had grown from the natural conflict of existing things, 
and grew irresistibly on and on, until it enveloped all 
the thought of the nation ; and that one great end 
appealing more than to the practical sense, to the moral 
impulses of men, making of them the fighting force. 
There Mr. Sumner found his place and there he grew 
great, for that moral impulse was stronger in him than 
in most of the world around him ; and it was in him 
not a mere crude, untutored force of nature, but edu- 
cated and elevated by thought and study ; and it found 
in his brain and heart an armory of strong weapons 
given to but few ; vast information, legal learning, 
industry, eloquence, undaunted courage, an independ- 
ent and iron will, profound convictions, unbounded 
devotion and sublime faith. It found there also a keen 
and just instinct as to the objects which must be 
reached and the forces which must be set in motion 
and driven on to reach them. Thus keeping the end 
steadily, obstinately, intensely in view, he marched 
ahead of his followers, never disturbed by their anxie- 
ties and fears, showing them that what was necessary 
was possible, and forcing them to follow him, — a great 
moving power, such as the struggle required. 

Nor can it be said that this impatient, irrepressible 
propulsion was against all prudence and sound judg- 
ment, for it must not be forgotten, that, when Mr. 
Sumner stepped into the front, the policy of compro- 
mise was exhausted ; the time of composition and expe- 
dient was past. Things had gone so far, that the idea 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHURZ. 257 

of reaching the end, which ultimately must be reached, 
by mutual concession and a gradual and peaceable proc- 
ess, was utterly hopeless. The conflicting forces could 
not be reconciled; the final struggle was indeed irre- 
pressible and inevitable, and all that could then be 
done was to gather up all the existing forces for one 
supreme effort, and to take care that the final stru<Mc 
should bring forth the necessary results. 

Thus the instinct and the obstinate, concentrated, irre- 
sistible moving power which Mr. Sumner possessed was 
an essential part of the true statesmanship of the revo- 
lutionary period. Had he lived before or after this 
great period, in quiet, ordinary times, he would per- 
haps never have gone into public life, or never risen 
in it to conspicuous significance. But all he was by 
nature, by acquirement, by ability, by moral impulse, 
made him one of the heroes of that great struggle 
against slavery, and in some respects the first. And 
then when the victory was won, the same moral nature, 
the same sense of justice, the same enlightened mind, 
impelled him to plead the cause of peace, reconciliation 
and brotherhood, through equal rights and even justice, 
thus completing the fulness of his ideal. On the ped- 
estal of his time he stands one of the greatest of Amer- 
icans. 

What a peculiar power of fascination there was in 
him as a public man ! It acted much through his elo- 
quence, but not through his eloquence alone. Hi- 
speech was not a graceful flow of melodious periods, 
now drawing on the listener with the persuasive tone 
of confidential conversation, then carrying him along 

33 



258 CHARLES SUMNER. 

with a more rapid rush of thought and language, and 
at last lifting him up with the peals of reason in pas- 
sion. His arguments marched forth at once in grave 
and stately array ; his sentences like rows of massive 
doric columns, unrelieved by pleasing variety, severe 
and imposing. His orations, especially those pro- 
nounced in the Senate before the war, contain many 
passages of grandest beauty. There was nothing kindly 
persuasive in his utterance ; his reasoning appeared in 
the form of consecutive assertion, not seldom strictly 
logical and irresistibly strong. His mighty appeals were 
always addressed to the noblest instincts of human 
nature. His speech was never enlivened by anything 
like wit or humor. They were foreign to his nature. 
He has never been guilty of a flash of irony or sar- 
casm. His weapon was not the foil, but the battle-axe. 
He has often been accused of being uncharitable to 
opponents in debate, and of wounding their feelings 
with uncalled for harshness of language. He was guilty 
of that, but no man was less conscious of the stinging 
force of his language than he. He was often sorry for 
the eifect his thrusts had produced, but being always so 
firmly and honestly persuaded of the correctness of his 
own opinions, that he could scarcely ever appreciate 
the position of an opponent, he fell into the same fault 
again. Not seldom he appeared haughty in his assump- 
tions of authority ; but it was the imperiousness of pro- 
found conviction, which, while sometimes exasperating 
his hearers, yet scarcely ever failed to exercise over 
them a certain sway. His fancy was not fertile, his 
figures mostly labored and stiff. In his later years his 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUEZ. 259 

vast learning began to become an encumbering burdeD 
to his eloquence. The mass of quoted sayings and his- 
torical illustrations, not seldom accumulated beyond 
measure and grotesquely grouped, sometimes threatened 
to suffocate the original thought and to oppress the 
hearer. But even then his words scarcely ever failed 
to chain the attention of the audience, and I have more 
than once seen the Senate attentively listening while he 
read from printed slips the most elaborate disquisition, 
which, if attempted by any one of his colleagues, would 
at once have emptied the floor and galleries. But there 
were always moments recalling to our mind the days of 
his freshest vigor, when he stood in the midst of the 
great struggle, lifting up the youth of the country with 
heart-stirring appeals, and with the lion-like thunder of 
his voice shaking the Senate chamber. 

Still there was another source from which that fas- 
cination sprung. Behind all he said and did there stood 
a grand manhood, which never failed to make itself felt. 
What a figure he was, with his tall and stalwart frame, 
his manly face, topped with his shaggy locks, his noble 
bearing, the finest type of American Senatorship, the 
tallest oak of the forest ! And how small they appeared 
by his side, the common run of politicians, who spend 
their days with the laying of pipe, and the setting up 
of pins, and the pulling of wires ; who barter an office 
to secure this vote, and procure a contract to get that ; 
who stand always with their ears to the wind to hear 
how the administration sneezes, and what their constitu- 
ents whisper, in mortal trepidation lest they fail in being 
all things to everybody! How he towered above them, 



260 CHARLES SUMNER. 

he whose aims were always the highest and noblest ; 
whose very presence made you forget the vulgarities of 
political life ; who dared to differ with any man ever so 
powerful, any multitude ever so numerous ; who re- 
garded party as nothing but a means for great ends, and 
for those ends defied its power ; to whom the arts of 
demagogism were so contemptible, that he would rather 
have sunk into obscurity and oblivion than descend to 
them ; to whom the dignity of his office was so sacred 
that he would not even ask for it for fear of darkening 
its lustre ! 

Honor to the people of Massachusetts who, for 
twenty-three years, kept in the Senate, and would 
have kept him there ever so long, had he lived, a 
man who never, even to them, conceded a single iota 
of his convictions in order to remain there ! And what 
a life was his ! A life so wholly devoted to what was 
good and pure ! There he stood in the midst of the 
grasping materialism of our times, around him the 
eager chase for the almighty dollar, no thought of 
opportunity ever entering the smallest corner of his 
mind, and disturbing his high endeavors ; with a virtue 
which the possession of power could not even tempt, 
much less debauch ; from whose presence the very 
thought of corruption instinctively shrunk back ; a life 
so spotless, an integrity so intact, a character so high, 
that the most daring eagerness of calumny, the most 
wanton audacity of insinuation, standing on tiptoe, 
could not touch the soles of his shoes ! 

They say that he indulged in overweening self- 
appreciation. Ay, he did have a magnificent pride, a 






e 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUKZ. 261 

lofty self-esteem. Why should he not? Let wretches 
despise themselves, for they have good reason to do 
so; not he. But in his self-esteem there was noih ... 
small and mean ; no man lived to whose very natur 
envy and petty jealousy were more foreign. Con 
scious of his own merit, he never depreciated the merit 
of others; nay, he not only recognized it, but he 
expressed that recognition with that cordial spontaneity 
which can only flow from a sincere and generous 
heart. His pride of self was like his pride of country. 
He was the proudest American; he was the proudest 
New Englander; and yet he was the most cosmopol- 
itan American I have ever seen. There was in him 
not the faintest shadow of that narrow prejudice which 
looks askance at what has grown in foreign lands. 
His generous heart and his enlightened mind were too 
generous and too enlightened not to give the fullest 
measure of appreciation to all that was good and 
worthy, from whatever quarter of the globe it came. 

And now his home ! There are those around me 
who have breathed the air of his house in Washington, 
— that atmosphere of refinement, taste, scholarship, art, 
friendship, and w T arm-hearted hospitality ; who have 
seen those rooms covered and filled with his pictures, 
his engravings, his statues, his bronzes, his books and 
rare manuscripts — the collections of a lifetime — the 
image of the richness of his mind, the comfort and 
consolation of his solitude. They have beheld his 
childlike smile of satisfaction when he unlocked the 
most precious of his treasures and told their stories. 
They remember the conversations at his hospitable 



262 CHARLES SUMNER. 

board, genially inspired and directed by him, on art, 
and books, and inventions, and great times, and great 
men, — when suddenly sometimes, by accident, a new 
mine of curious knowledge disclosed itself in him, 
which his friends had never known he possessed ; or 
when a sunburst of the affectionate gentleness of his 
soul warmed all hearts around him. They remember 
his craving for friendship, as it spoke through the far 
outstretched hand when you arrived, and the glad 
exclamation: "I am so happy you came," — and the 
beseeching, almost despondent tone when you departed : 
"Do not leave me yet; do stay awhile longer, I want 
so much to speak with you ! " It is all gone now. He 
could not stay himself, and he has left his friends 
behind, feeling more deeply than ever that no man 
could know him well but to love him. 

Now we have laid him into his grave, in the motherly 
soil of Massachusetts, which was so dear to him. He 
is at rest now, the stalwart, brave old champion, whose 
face and bearing were so austere, and whose heart was 
so full of tenderness ; who began his career with a 
pathetic plea for universal peace and charity, and whose 
whole life was an arduous, incessant, never-resting 
struggle, which left him all covered with scars. And 
we can do nothing for him but commemorate his lofty 
ideals of Liberty, and Equality, and Justice, and Recon- 
ciliation, and Purity, and the earnestness and courage 
and touching fidelity with which he fought for them ; 
so genuine in his sincerity, so single-minded in his 
zeal, so heroic in his devotion ! 

Oh, that we could but for one short hour call him 



EULOGY BY CARL SCHUEZ. 263 

up from his coffin, to let him see with the same eyes 
which saw so much hostility, that those who stood 
against him in the struggles of his life are his enemies 
no longer! That we could show him the fruit of the 
conflicts and sufferings of his last three years, and that 
he had not struggled and suifered in vain! We would 
bring before him, not only those who from oftended 
partisan zeal assailed him, and who now with sorrowful 
hearts praise the purity of his patriotism ; but we Avould 
bring to him that man of the South, a slaveholder and 
a leader of secession in his time, the echo of whose 
words spoken in the name of the South in the halls of 
the National Capitol we heard but yesterday; words of 
respect, of gratitude, of tenderness. That man of the 
South should then do what he deplored not to have 
done while he lived, — he should lay his hand upon the 
shoulders of the old friend of the human kind and say 
to him: "Is it you whom I hated, and who, as I 
thought, hated me? I have learned now the greatness 
and magnanimity of your soul, and here I offer you 
my hand and heart." 

Could he but see this with those eyes, so weary of 
contention and strife, how contentedly would he close 
them again, having beheld the greatness of his victories ! 

People of Massachusetts ! he was the son of your soil, 
in which he now sleeps; but he is not all your own. 
He belongs to all of us in the North and in the South, 
— to the blacks he helped to make free, and to the 
whites he strove to make brothers again. Let, on the 
o-rave of him whom so many thought to be their 
enemy, and found to be their friend, the hands l>e 



264 CHARLES SUMNER. 

clasped which so bitterly warred against each other. 
Let upon that grave the youth of America be taught, 
by the story of his life, that not only genius, power 
and success, but more than these, patriotic devotion 
and virtue, make the greatness of the citizen ! If this 
lesson be understood, followed, more than Charles 
Sumner's living word could have done for the glory of 
America will then be done by the inspiration of his 
great example. And it will truly be said, that although 
his body lies mouldering in the earth, yet in the 
assured rights of all, in the brotherhood of a reunited 
people, and in a purified Republic, he still lives and 
will live forever. 



ORATION BY ROBERT B. ELLIOTT, 



(Of South Carolina,) 



DELIVERED BY INVITATION OF 



THE COLORED CITIZENS OF BOSTON, 

IN FANEUIL HALL, 



APRIL 14, 1874. 
34 



ORATION. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

The boon of a noble human life cannot be appropri- 
ated by any single nation or race. It is a part of the 
common wealth of the world; a treasure, a guide and 
an inspiration to all men, in all lands, and through all 
ages. The earthly activities of this life are circum- 
scribed by time and space ; but the divine and essential 
genius which informs and inspires that life is boundless 
in the sweep of its influence, and immortal in the 
energy of its activity. In the great All Hail Here- 
after, in that mysterious and glorious Future, which 
the heart of man, touched, as I firmly believe, by a 
divine intimation, is ever painting with more or less of 
conscious fondness, those mighty spirits moving in new 
majesty and power on their great missions of Truth 
and Love, will have laid aside the limitations which 
fettered them here and become the apparent and 
acknowledged leaders and voices of humanity itself. 

Charles Sumner, in his mortal limitations, was an 
American; more narrowly, he was a .Massachusetts 
man; more narrowly still, he was a white man: but 
to-day what nation shall claim him, what State shall 



268 CHARLES SUMNER. 

appropriate him, what race shall boast him? He was 
the fair consummate flower of humanity. He was the 
fruit of the ages. He was the child of the Past and 
the promise of the Future. The whole world, could it 
but know its relations, would mourn his departure, 
and mankind everywhere would join in his honors. 

But, fellow-citizens, if any fraction of humanity may 
claim a peculiar right to do honor to the memory of 
this great common benefactor of the world, surely it is 
the colored race in these United States. To other men 
his services may seem only a vast accession of strength 
to a cause already moving with steady and assured 
advance ; to us, to the colored race, he is and ever 
will be the great leader in political life, whose ponder- 
ous and incessant blows battered down the walls of 'our 
prison-house, and whose strong hand led us forth into 
the sunlight of Freedom. I do not seek to appropriate 
him to my race : but I do feel to-day that my race 
might almost bid the race to which by blood he 
belonged, to stand aside while we to whose welfare his 
life was so completely given, advance to do grateful 
honor to him who was our great Benefactor and Friend. 
"To the illustrious the whole world is a sepulchre." 
To Charles Sumner the whole civilized world has paid 
its honors, and now we meet to give some formal tes- 
timony of our profound reverence for the personal gifts 
and powers, for the measure of unselfish devotion, 
which he gave to us. 

If I could on this occasion frame into articulate words 
the feelings of our hearts, if I could but half express 
the depth and sincerity of that gratitude which dwells 



OEATIOX BY EOBEKT B. ELLIOTT. 269 

in all our hearts, I might hope to rise to the height 
of the feelings of this hour. But that may not be. 

This is Faneuil Hall. Here, within this venerable 
shelter, so fitly styled " The Cradle of Liberty," a little 
more than twenty-eight years ago the voice of Charles 
Sumner was first heard in that great warfare to which 
his after-life was so completely devoted. His tones 
were trumpet-like. Listen to them: "Let Massachu- 
setts, then, be aroused. Let all her children be sum- 
moned to this holy cause. There are questions of 
ordinary politics in which men may remain neutral ; 
but neutrality now is" treason to liberty, to humanity, 
and to the fundamental principles of free institutions. 
. Massachusetts must continue foremost in the 
cause of Freedom." 

Brave, glorious words ! But how few then to echo 
them ! Twenty-eight years only have passed, and here 
in that same Faneuil Hall, that prostrate race against 
whose further enslavement Charles Sumner then thun- 
dered his protest and warning, have met beneath the 
protection of the laws, not only of Massachusetts, but 
of the American Republic, to do honor to that splendid 
career then and there begun, which witnessed the final 
overthrow of Slavery and the citizenship of its victims 
throughout the Republic. 

From that hour, in this Hall, in November, 1845, 
Charles Sumner may be said to have entered on his 
life-work. With what spendid equipments of mind, of 
heart, of body, did he advance to the conflict! No 
knio-htlier figure ever moved forth to ancient jousts. 



270 CHARLES SUMNER. 

No braver heart ever enlisted in Freedom's cause. No 
scholarship more complete and affluent, since Milton, 
has placed its gifts and graces at the shrine of Justice 
and public Honor. 

He little dreamed, I have ventured to think, of the 
severity of the sacrifices or the glory of the achieve- 
ments which lay in the pathway on which he then 
entered. The mad and remorseless spirit of Slavery 
which then aroused his courage and drew him to the 
conflict, moved steadily forward to its purposes. Texas 
was annexed; the whole North, the entire national 
domain, were converted into the hunting-ground of 
Slavery; but Charles Sumner was lifted by Massa- 
chusetts into the Senate of the United States. The 
voice which had awakened the echoes of this historic 
Hall in November, 1845, was transferred to that central 
point to rouse the sleeping conscience of the whole 
nation. With these vows, uttered likewise in this Hall, 
he entered upon his august duties in the Senate, "To 
vindicate Freedom and oppose Slavery, so far as I may 
constitutionally — with earnestness, and yet, I trust, 
without personal unkindness on my part — is the object 
near my heart. Would that my voice, leaving this 
crowded hall to-night, could traverse the hills and val- 
leys of New England, that it could run along the rivers 
and lakes of my country, lighting in every heart a 
beacon-flame to arouse the slumberers throughout the 
land ! Others may become indifferent to these princi- 
ples, bartering them for political success, vain and 
short-lived, or forgetting the visions of youth in the 
dreams of age. Whenever I forget them, whenever I 



ORATION- BY ROBERT B. ELLIOTT. 271 

become indifferent to them, whenever I cease to be 
constant in maintaining them, through good reporl and 
evil report, in any future combinations of party, then 
may 'my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth', may 
my right hand forget its cunning.'" 

From the hour he entered the Senate the combat 
narrowed and deepened. The dreadful Fugitive Slave 
Law hung its pall over the whole land. The spirit of 
Slavery was omnipresent, ruling Courts, Congress, 
Churches. In all this fierce conflict, above the loudest 
din, ever sounded his courageous, clarion voice. Wha1 
cause was ever honored by nobler efforts of research, 
of argument, of historical illustration, of classical adorn- 
ments, of strong-hearted, resounding and lofty elo- 
quence? But above all other utterances was the 
constant and conspicuous enunciation of the highest 
moral principles as applicable to all political action 
and duty. Hear him: " Sir, I have never been a poli- 
tician. The slave of principles, I call no party master. 
By sentiment, education and conviction a friend of 
Human Eights in their utmost expansion, I have ever 
most sincerely embraced the Democratic Idea,— not, 
indeed, as represented or professed by any party, but 
according to its real significance, as transfigured in the 
Declaration of Independence and in the injunctions of 
Christianity. Amidst the vicissitudes of public affairs. 
I shall hold fast always to this idea, and to any politi- 
cal party that truly embraces it." 

With such sentiments planted and cultivated into full 
growth and vigor in the very soil of his moral nature, 
he presented himself to the country and the world in 



272 CHARLES SUMNEE. 

his first senatorial speech in August, 1852, upon the 
repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. Reading that massive 
and noble argument again in the light of twenty years 
of subsequent events, how difficult to realize the pro- 
digious moral energy which it at once demanded and 
displayed ! The argument is ample and conclusive ; the 
historical proofs are abundant; the eloquence is noble 
and affecting ; but high above all rises the grandeur of 
the moral convictions which underlie and inspire all its 
wealth of argumentation and oratory. With proud and 
undaunted spirit he thus denounces that wicked enact- 
ment : " Sir, the Slave Act violates the Constitution 
and shocks the Public Conscience. With modesty, and 
yet with firmness, let. me add, sir, it offends against 
the Divine Law. 

"No such enactment is entitled to support. As the 
throne of God is above every earthly throne, so are 
his laws and statutes above all the laws and statutes 
of men. The mandates of an earthly power are to be 
discussed ; those of Heaven must at once be per- 
formed ; nor can we suffer ourselves to be drawn into 
any compacts in opposition to God." Words worthy, 
are they not, fellow-citizens, of the noblest of the 
martyrs and confessors of any age? One year before, 
his faithful friend, Theodore Parker, a name ever 
sacred in the hearts of those who love Freedom and 
Truth, had written him, "I hope you will build on the 
Rock of Ages and look to Eternity for your justifica- 
tion." How truly did he build on the Rock of Ages ! 
Yet, while he looked to eternity, time has brought him 
his abundant justification ! 



ORATIOX BY ROBERT B. ELLIOTT. 273 

Upon the lofty arena of the Senate he now struggled 
incessantly with the intellectual gladiators whom Slavery 
ever had as her champions. The heat and din of the 
conflict grew greater at every step. Yet there he 
stood, proud, defiant, uncomplaining, aggressive. How 
heavy the strain on his great but sensitive nature, so 
finely cultured, his words of acknowledgment of the 
cordial support which Massachusetts ever gave him, 
will attest. Hear him at Worcester: "After months of 
constant, anxious service in another place, away from 
Massachusetts, I am permitted to stand among you 
again, my fellow-citizens, and to draw satisfaction and 
strength from your generous presence. Life is full of 
change and contrast. From slave soil I have come to 
free soil. From the tainted breath of Slavery I have 
passed into the bracing air of Freedom. And the 
heated antagonism of debate, shooting forth its fiery 
cinders, is changed into this brimming, overflowing 
welcome, while I seem to lean on the great heart of 
our beloved Commonwealth, as it palpitates audibly in 
this crowded assembly." 

A little later, Slavery, in its rapid march, assailed 
the time-honored barrier which the compromise of a 
former generation had set up against its advance over 
our vast North-western territories. Mr. Sumxer was 
now at the height of his powers. His age was forty- 
three ; his senatorial experience was such as to confirm 
his confidence in his own powers, and to concentrate 
upon him the confidence and admiration of the friends 
of Freedom. History has been to me the delight and 
study of my life, but I know of no figure in history 

35 



274 CHARLES SUMNER. 

which commands more of my admiration than that of 
Charles Sumner in the Senate of the United States, 
from the hour -when Douglas presented his ill-omened 
measure for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
until the blow of the assassin laid him low. Here was 
the perfection of moral constancy and daring. Here 
was sleepless vigilance, unwearying labor, hopefulness 
born only of deepest faith, buoyant resolution caring- 
nothing for human odds, but serenely abiding in the 
perfect peace which the unselfish service of Truth 
alone can bring. The issues then before the country 
awakened his profoundest alarm. The balance seemed 
to him to be about to pass from Freedom to Slavery. 
The American Eepublic, so solemnly dedicated by the 
Fathers to Freedom, seemed about to cut loose from 
all her ancient moorings. The imminence and great- 
ness of the danger oppressed him. Listen to these 
words, opening that speech which seems to me perhaps 
the most perfect of his life, ill which he first opposed 
the removal of the Landmark of Freedom: "Mr. 
President, I approach this discussion with awe. The 
mighty question, with untold issues, oppresses me. 
Like a portentous cloud, surcharged with irresistible 
storm and ruin, it seems to fill the whole heavens, 
making me painfully conscious how unequal to the oc- 
casion I am, — how unequal, also, is all that I can say 
to all that I feel." But listen, also, to these words of 
lofty cheer which fitly close the same speech, in which, 
rising on the wings of Faith, he looks beyond the 
storm raging around him, and contemplates that purer 
and final " Union contemplated at the beginning, 



ORATION BY ROBERT B. ELLIOTT. 



275 



against which the storms of faction and the assaults of 
foreign power shall beat in vain, as upon the Rock of 
Ages,— and Liberty, seeking a firm foothold, will 

HAVE AT LAST WHEREON TO STAND AND MOVE THE 
WORLD." 

To such a man, to a faith so clear-sighted, to a 
spirit so faithful to God and His Truth, no disaster or 
defeat, my fellow-citizens, can ever come. Victory sits 
forever on his triumphant crest. 

And in his last final protest against that measureless 
wrong, see how, from the oppression of temporary 
defeat, he rises to joyous heights of serene moral con- 
fidence : "Sir, more clearly than ever before, I now 
penetrate that great Future when Slavery must disap- 
pear. Proudly I discern the flag of my country, as it 
ripples in every breeze, at last in reality, as in name, 
the Flag of Freedom, — undoubted, pure and irresistible. 
Sorrowfully I bend before the wrong you commit. 
Joyfully I welcome the promises of the Future." 

But the sacred Landmark of Freedom for which he 
pleaded was ruthlessly swept away, and two years later, 
the country was convulsed by the outrages of the Slave 
Power on the plains of Kansas. The conflict raged 
equally in the halls of Congress, where Slavery sought 
to gather the fruits of this great wrong, by the organ- 
ization of the Territory of Kansas as a Slave State. 

Against this measure, Charles Sumner uttered the 
magnificent philippic entitled so aptly "The Crime 
against Kansas," thus expressing in a single phrase, the 
moral aspects and character of that whole passage of 
history. 



276 CHARLES SUMNER. 

Ill that speech he developed new powers of denun- 
ciation and invective. From the impressive exordium 
beginning, "Mr. President, you are now called to 
redress a great wrong," — on through the ample state- 
ment, the exhaustive narrative, the irresistible argu- 
ment, the fiery invective, the pathetic appeal, to those 
last words of the memorable peroration, — "In the name 
of the Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect Free- 
dom, I make this last appeal," — he spoke with abso- 
lute fidelity to the convictions of his own heart, and of 
the aroused conscience of the free North. It was the 
full discharge, aye, the explosion, of the slumbering 
volcano of moral indignation which Slavery had aroused 
in thirtv years of continuous and intolerable agm-es- 

•J •/ OB 

sions. It was the voice of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence calling back the recreant sons to the faith and 
practice of the Fathers. It was, as Whittier said, "a 
grand and terrible philippic, worthy of the great occa- 
sion ; the severe and awful truth which the sharp agony 
of the national crisis demanded." It was more than a 
speech, it was an event. It was more than a half bat- 
tle, it was a battle crowned with glorious victory. It 
was a scene and a speech to be compared only with 
the great triumphs of oratory, — Demosthenes pleading 
for Athenian liberty, Cicero thundering against the 
oppressor of Sicily, Burke arraigning the Scourge of 
India. 

But why do I thus characterize that great utterance? 
Two days after its delivery it received a demonstration 
of its quality and power, more impressive and startling 
than any which attended the former masterpieces of 



ORATION BY ROBERT B. ELLIOTT. 277 

human speech. Slavery, i„ the person of a Represent- 
ative in Congress from South Carolina, struck him to 
the floor and covered him with murderous blows. It 
was, as another has eloquently said, "our champion 
beaten to the ground for the noblest word Massachusetts 
ever spoke in the Senate." 

The effect of this assault upon the fortunes of the 
two struggling Powers, —Freedom and Slavery, — was 
significant. Each rushed to the support of its cham- 
pion. Brooks was hailed throughout the South as the 
chivalrous exponent of Slavery, while Charles Sumner 
ceased to be the assailant merely of Slavery, and 
became the champion and martyr of free speech and 
the sacred right of parliamentary debate. 

Alas, — do we not still say alas, — that "that noble 
head," as Emerson then said, "so comely and so wise, 
must be the target for a pair of bullies to beat with 
clubs ! " Yet that blood Avas precious testimony for 
Truth and Freedom. In an instant the civilized world 
stood by the side of Sumner. What neither moral 
force, nor finished scholarship, nor commanding elo- 
quence could do, this final brutality achieved ; and from 
that day the hot and furious wrath of every freedom- 
loving heart, fell upon that institution whose agent and 
representative had thus outraged humanity itself. Amer- 
ica and Europe rang with a shout of horror. This 
historic hall echoed with fitting words of indignant elo- 
quence. "It is," said one still living, "it is a blow not 
merely at Massachusetts, a blow not merely at the 
name and fame of our common country; it is a blow 
at constitutional liberty all the world over; it is a stab 



278 CHARLES SUMNER. 

at the cause of Universal Freedom. It is aimed at all 
men, everywhere, who are struggling for what we now 
regard as our great birth-right, and which we intend 
to transmit unimpaired to our latest posterity. 
Forever, forever and aye, that stain will plead in 
silence for liberty, wherever man is enslaved, for 
humanity all over the world, for truth and for justice, 
now and forever." 

Months and years of bodily suffering followed this 
outrage, borne, as all his life's experiences were borne, 
with unsurpassed fortitude, but with longings inexpres- 
sible for a return to the activities and dangers of the 
conflict in which he was now the central figure. While 
recalling this devotion of her great Senator, let me not 
forget to pay a tribute to that generous and true Com- 
monwealth which he so truly represented. If Charles 
Sumner was faithful, so was Massachusetts. The proud 
State felt, and felt truly, that his vacant chair was her 
truest representative until he to whom it belonged 
should re-occupy it. While still prostrated and unable 
to resume his duties, Massachusetts by a vote approach- 
ing unanimity, re-elected him as her Senator, — State 
and Senator, true to each other, worthy of each other. 

But while resting among the Alleghanies of our own 
country, or seeking health on foreign shores, his heart 
was never absent from the Great Cause. What tributes 
do his brief utterances bear to the unwavering fidelity of 
his soul ! Speaking to a sympathizing friend, he says, 
"Oh, no. My suffering is little, in comparison with 
daily occurrences. The poorest slave is in danger of 
worse outrages every moment of his life." Again he 



OKATION BY ROBERT B. ELLIOTT. 279 

write, to the young men of Fitchburg, "We hare ,, 

told that the 'duties of life are more than life'; and I 
assure you that the hardest part of my present lot is the 
enforced absence from public duties, and especially from 
that seat, where, as Senator from Massachusetts, it is 
my right, and also my strong desire at this moment, to 
be heard." 

Again he writes, "With sorrow inexpressible I am 
constrained to all the care and reserve of an invalid 
More than four months have passed since you clasped 
my hand as I lay bleeding in the Senate chamber. This 
is hard, very hard, for me to bear, for I long to do some- 
thing, at this critical moment, for the Cause. What is 
life worth without action?" 

Again, while lingering at Savoy, subjected to daily 
treatment by fire, he writes, "It is with a pang unspeak- 
able that I find myself thus arrested in the labors of life 
and in the duties of my position. This is harder to bear 
than the fire." 

No testimonies of this noble life will be more precious 
than these longings of this great heart for the duties of 
his position. 

At last on the 4th of June, 1860, he Avas permitted 
to re-enter upon those scenes of senatorial debate from 
which, four years before, he had been so cruelly with- 
drawn. Butler and Brooks were both dead. The 
memories of his outrage and sufferings must have filled 
his mind, yet see how he puts by all personal considera- 
tions, and remembers only the Cause for which he is to 
speak : " Mr. President, I have no personal griefs to 
utter, — only a vulgar egotism could intrude such into 



280 CHARLES SUMKER. 

this chamber ; I have no personal wrongs to avenge, 
— only a brutish nature could attempt to wield that 
vengeance which belongs to the Lord. The years that 
have intervened and the tombs that have opened since 
I spoke, have their voices, which I cannot fail to hear. 
Besides, what am I, what is any man among the living 
or among the dead, compared with the question before 
us?" 

With these simple arid yet pathetic allusions he com- 
menced that most exhaustive delineation of the spirit, 
methods and effects of Slavery, which, under its singu- 
larly felicitous title, "The Barbarism of Slavery," will 
remain a monument of research, of invective, and of 
impassioned eloquence. 

From this time the great drama moved rapidly to its 
catastrophe. The Slave Power writhed beneath the 
effect of this awful arraignment at the bar of the 
world's judgment. It saw in secession from the Union 
and the establishment of a separate Slaveholding Con- 
federacy, its only hope and safety. Abraham Lincoln 
became President, and in April, 1861, the bombard- 
ment of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, sounded the 
tocsin of civil war throughout the land. Into that 
struggle Charles Sumner entered without hesitation 
and without alarm. His only anxiety had been to keep 
the North clear of the deadly spirit of Compromise. 
Let justice be done him here. His moral equilibrium 
and courage were never more conspicuous. Many had 
joined him in his fierce assaults on Slavery, who now 
shrunk back from the gulf of war and disunion which 
seemed to open before them. Compromises were sug- 



ORATION BY ROBERT B. ELLIOTT. 281 

gested on all sides, — compromises, too, which would 
have robbed Freedom of all her advantage and left the 
Slave to his hopeless bondage. Let no negro forget, — 
nay, let no American forget, — that Charles Sumner 
never sullied his lips with degrading compromise. 

Duty was his master ; Justice' ruled him ; and to 
every suggestion of compromise with Slavery he re- 
sponded, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" 

His inflexible spirit may be seen in these words to 
Governor Andrew : " Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. 
Don't let these words be ever out of your mind, when 
you think of any proposition from the Slave Masters. 
They are all essentially false, with treason in their 
hearts, if not on their tongues. How can it be other- 
wise? Slavery is a falsehood, and its supporters are 
all perverted and changed. Punic in faith, Punic in 
character, you are to meet all that they do or say 
with denial or distrust. I know these men and see 
through their plot. The time has not yet come to 
touch the chords which I wish to awaken. But I see 
my way clear. O God! let Massachusetts keep true. 
It is all I ask." 

Ao-ain, to the same friend he writes, "More than the 
loss of forts, arsenals, or the national capital, / fear 
the loss of our principles. . . . Keep firm, and 
do not listen to any proposition." 

Fellow-citizens, I am a negro— one of the victim 
race. My heart bows in gratitude to every man who 
struck a blow for the liberty of my race. But how can 
I fail to remember that alone, alone, of all the great 
leaders of our cause at Washington, Charles SumSEB 

36 



282 CHARLES SUMXER. 

kept his faith to Freedom, stern and true. What 
measure of honor shall we not pay to him whose only 
prayer, amidst the abounding dangers of that hour, 
was, "O God! let Massachusetts keep true"? Lin- 
coln, Seward, Adams, — eulogy even cannot claim such 
absolute fidelity for either of them. History, I venture 
to predict, will point to this passage in the life of 
Charles Sumner, as the highest proof of the superior 
and faultless tone of his moral nature. What a majestic 
moral figure ! Let us bear it in our hearts as the 
crowning gift and glory of his life. 

But humanit}^ swept onward ; timid compromisers 
were overwhelmed by the logic of events ; and at last 
God held this great nation face to face with its duty. 
The death-grapple rocked and agonized the land. Re- 
leased from the Delilah bands of compromise, the Sam- 
son of the North resumed and re-asserted his resistless 
strength. In the van of every effort and policy which 
sought the overthrow of Slavery or the triumph of Free- 
dom, was Charles Sumxer. " Kmaxcipatiox, our best 
Weapox," is the inspiring title of a speech bearing so 
early a date as October 1, 1861. "Welcome to Fugi- 
tive Slaves," was a senatorial utterance of December 
4, 1861. With tireless industry, working in all direc- 
tions : in legislation for the support of our armies ; for 
maintaining our public credit ; in inspiring the President 
to his full duty ; in guarding our relations with other 
nations; above all, in saving the nation from the fatal 
mistake of Mr. Lincoln's Louisiana scheme of reconstruc- 
tion, he sustained, encouraged, vindicated, and ennobled 
the National Cause. 



ORATION BY ROBERT B. ELLIOTT. 283 

The triumph of the national arms in the sprin* of 1801 
threw upon the National Government the unparalleled 
task of re-establishing civil government in the rebellious 
States. The work of destruction was ended, and the 
work of rebuilding must be begun. The ill-advised and 
ill-starred attempts of Andrew Johnson complicated the 
problem already bristling with difficulties, constitutional 
and legal, and beset with dangers, political and moral. 
The moral intrepidity and prescience of Mr. Sumner, 
were earliest to detect the false political theories which' 
then so widely prevailed. With wonted boldness he 
denounced the Presidential scheme of reconstruction, 
and summoned Congress and the country to its duty. 
In a series of senatorial efforts he proclaimed and em- 
phasized in the ear of the nation, the paramount duty 
of guarding the results of the war by " irreversible con- 
stitutional guarantees." Especially did he denouuee the 
injustice and wickedness of any settlement which left 
the colored race of the South under the hands of their 
former masters. This was an axiom in his arguments, 
the postidate of his reasonings. From this starting 
point he readily reached that conclusion, finally accepted 
by the country and enacted into our national laws and 
Constitution, that the colored race must be made citizens 
of the United States and voters in their respective 
States. The Declaration of Independence, with its 
lofty and immortal truth, — "All men are created free 
and equal," — was to him a clear and constant guide 
In this grand, germinal truth, he saw the only true 
and final rule of government, and he pressed towards 
its practical realization with eager and unfaltering steps. 



284: CHARLES SUMMER. 

He had heard this sacred tenet of the Fathers flouted in 
the Senate as a " self-evident lie," but he only bore it 
the more proudly and conspicuously on his shield until 
he could gratefully say, "The Declaration of Independ- 
ence, so lately a dishonored tradition, is now the rubric 
and faith of the Republic." God be praised ! he found 
at last that " Union, where Liberty, seeking a firm foot- 
hold, might have whereon to stand and move the icorld." 

Once only in all this splendid and faithful career did 
Charles Sumner part company with the great mass of 
the friends of Freedom, and on this he needs no silence. 

Differing, as I could not but differ, from his judgment 
in the last national campaign, I point to it to-day as one 
of the highest proofs cf his utter devotion to the call of 
duty. Still was he true, utterly true, to his convictions, 
to the commanding voice of Conscience. He had been 
faithful in defeat ; could he be faithful in success ? Draw 
no veil of silence over this passage ; but write it high 
on his monument, — that in old age, when the weary 
frame longed for repose, he could again brace himself 
for the conflict in which nearly all of the friends of a 
lifetime stood arrayed against him. 

" Xothing is here for tears ; nothing to wail 
Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, 
Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair." 

As his life was wholly consecrated to Duty, so his 
death was wanting in no element of moral grandeur. 
He fell with armor on, with face still inflexibly turned 
towards present duties, fronting eternity with the simple 
trust which God gives to his faithful servant. With no 



ORATION BY ROBERT B. ELLIOTT. 285 

vague dread or anxiety concerning the Future, he bore 
his earthly cares and duties to the threshold of Eter- 
nity, and laid down the burdens of life only at the feet 
of his Divine Master. "Don't let my Civil Rights Bill 
fail," was his fitting adieu to Earth and greeting to 
Heaven. 

Fellow-citizens, the life of Charles Sumner needs 
no interpreter. It is an open, illuminated page. The 
ends he aimed at were always high ; the means he used 
were always direct. Neither deception nor indirection, 
neither concealment nor disguise of any kind or decree, 
had place in his nature or methods. By open moans 
he sought open ends. He walked in the sunlight, and 
wrote his heart's inmost purpose on his forehead. 

His activity and capacity of intellectual labor were 
almost unequalled. Confined somewhat by the over- 
shadowing nature of the Anti-Slavery cause in the range 
of his topics, he multiplied his blows and redoubled the 
energy of his assaults upon that great enemy of his 
country's peace. Here his vigor knew no bounds. He 
laid all ages and lands under contribution. Scholarship 
in all its walks — history, art, literature, science — all 
these he made his aids and servitors. 

But who does not see that these are not his glory? 
He was a scholar among scholars; an orator of consum- 
mate power; a statesman familiar with the structure of 
p-overnments and the social forces of the world. But ho 
was Greater and better than one or all of these ; he was 
a man of absolute moral rectitude of purpose and of life. 
His personal purity was perfect, and unquestioned every- 



286 CHARLES SUMNER. 

where. He carried morals into politics. And Ibis is 
the greatness of Charles Sumner, — that by the power 
of his moral enthusiasm he rescued the nation from its 
shameful subservience to the demands of material and 
commercial interests, and guided it up to the high plane 
of Justice and Right. Above bis other great qualities 
towers that moral greatness to which scholarship, ora- 
tory, and statesmanship are but secondary and insignifi- 
cant. He was just because he loved Justice; he was 
right because he loved Right. Let this be his record 
and epitaph. 

To have lived such a life were glory enough. Suc- 
cess was not needed to perfect its star-bright, immortal 
beauty. But success came. What amazing contrasts 
did his life witness ! He heard the hundred £ims which 
Boston tired for the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act ; 
and he saw Boston sending forth, with honors and bless- 
ings, a regiment of fugitive slaves to save that Union 
which the crime of her Webster had imperilled. He 
saw Franklin Pierce employing the power of the nation 
to force back one helpless fugitive to the hell of Slav- 
ery ; and he saw Abraham Lincoln write the edict of 
Emancipation. He heard Taney declare that "the black 
man had no rights which the Avhite man was bound to 
respect " ; and he welcomed Revels to his seat as a Sen- 
ator of the United States. 

But as defeat could not damp his ardor, so success 
could not abate his zeal. He fell while bearing aloft 
the same banner of Human Rights which, twenty-eight 
years before, he had unfurled and lifted in this hall. 

The blessings of the poor are his laurels. One sacred 



OEATICXN - BY KOBEKT B. ELLTOTT. 287 

thought, — Duty, — presided over his life, inspiring him 
in youth, guiding him in manhood, strengthening him 
in age. Be it ours to walk by the light of this pure 
example. Be it ours to copy his stainless integrity, his 
supreme devotion to Humanity, his profound faith in 
Truth, and his unconquerable moral enthusiasm. 

Adieu ! great Servant and Apostle of Liberty ! If 
others forget thee, thy fame shall be guarded by the 
millions of that emancipated race whose gratitude shall 
be more euduring than monumental marble or brass. 



SERMON BY HENRY ¥. FOOTE, 



PREACHED AT 



KING'S CHAPEL, 



SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 1874. 
37 



SERMON. 



"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any 
jjeople." 

" For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from 
Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of 
bread and the whole stay of water, ... the honorable man and 
the counsellor, . . . and the eloquent orator." 

" I will make a man more precious than fine gold : even a man 
than the golden wedge of Ophir." — Prov. xiv: 3-i; Is. iii : 1, 3; 
xiii: 12. 



The Old Testament might be called the JVeio Test 
(if we cared to play upon words), — the most modern 
touchstone to which we can bring character and duty, 
public or private. There are those, indeed, who deem 
it to be obsolete because it is old, — a method of rea- 
soning which would banish the light of the solar system 
from the universe, nay, which would abolish the uni- 
verse itself as utterly antediluvian. But the fathers of 
New England knew the rock on which they builded, 
when they strove to found their commonwealth on the 
eternal principles which they read on the ancient tables 
of stone ; and the living waters of conscience and duty 
which have quickened the souls of their children, which 
are the hope of the Republic to-day, have flowed forth 
from those granitic summits of immemorial law, as the 
stream gushed forth from the rock which Moses smote . 



292 CHARLES SUMNER. 

There are those, too, who sometimes deem that reli- 
gion belongs in a region apart from the strifes and 
questions of political life. And this is partly true. 
Religion is at home on the Mount of Transfiguration, 
above the smoke of the camp-fires and the noise of 
conflicts, where the heaven is nearer; but she does not 
take men up with her there unless she meets them in 
the plain, where in the dust and heat of conflict she is 
a light on their way and an inspiration in their spirit. 
We should all agree that questions of the day should 
not be made a religion of; that the church is no place 
for criminations or discords. But religion should be 
made a question of the day, — every day. And since 
she should be the most vital factor in every personal 
duty, and since no duty is more personal to every man 
and woman, under a system of government like ours, 
than that which concerns the public weal, it follows 
that the church has sometimes the necessity laid upon 
it of trying to show how religion bears on public duty 
and public service. And here, again, the Old Testament 
fairly blazes with light. It may almost be termed the 
great Manual of Political Duty ; and we need ask no 
better test of its inspired power to mould humanity 
towards the ideal future than is afforded by comparing 
its starry words, glowing in the firmament of truth with 
the light of justice and freedom, with the wisest maxims 
of the masters in statecraft, from Machiavelli's Prince 
and the Testament of Peter the Great of Russia, to the 
Bismarckian theory of a diplomacy gangrened with 
falsehood, or the idea that a nation is to be ruled by 
packing a caucus. When you come to deal with any 



SERMON BY HENRY W. FOOTE. 293 

question of public morals, or when you seek for words 
with which to describe a faithful public servant, the 
difficulty is not how to find, but what to choose, out 
of the riches of this Old Testament, so New. 

Our texts strike the chord to which our thoughts 
must perforce attune themselves to-day. A certain 
theme is laid down for us by the proud duty which fell 
to this church of being the voice of this dear old Com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts in her public service of 
mourning for one who had served her so long in the 
highest office in her gift. I could not, if 1 would, put 
aside the task which seems to be written for me in the 
signs of public mourning which still remain on these 
walls. 

The part which this church took in those solemn 
offices was due, as you know, not to our basing any 
claim upon the former connection of Senator Sumnek 
with this church, but to our placing the church at the 
service of the State government for the rites of honor 
which it sought to render ; and these dark drapiugs 
still hang here, in sympathy with the legislative vote 
which retains them at the Capitol during the period of 
public mourning, because we were a part of the State 
and acted for the State. Yet there was a special fitness 

a sort of family right — in our association in those 

memorable services when the streets of the city were 
like the aisles of a crowded church, and this house of 
prayer was as a central chapel. For many years of his 
life were rooted in this church; his father was its clerk 
during a part of the Senator's childhood ; his mother I 
knew well, as her pastor, in the gentle loveliness of an 



294 CHARLES SUMMER. 

old age, subdued by the chastening of many and singu- 
lar sorrows ; and we have a right to think that probably 
the clarion call of the Gospel wrought within him, more 
than he was himself aware, from the Christian teaching 
of those faithful men and lovers of truth and righteous- 
ness whose names are our heritage and our inspiration. 
Yet I do not propose to make this the occasion for a 
Commemorative Discourse of Eulogy : such a discourse 
will be given elsewhere, and by one qualified to speak, 
— as the Legislature may determine. Much has been 
already said by distinguished men in public places, and 
the time for Congressional Eulogy is still to come. My 
duty here is other than that, — very simple, yet very 
true. It is, to try to impress on ourselves, while the 
feeling of the hour is fresh, some of the principles which 
w r e need more than ever to insist on in our judgments 
of public duty and our actions as faithful citizens. I 
would say nothing to open old feuds or strifes, now 
forever silenced ; nor is it needful to stir the embers of 
that fire of controversy which consumed the nation for 
so long, — now happily turned to ashes and as far back 
of us as the flood. I pray that no word of mine may 
bring us down from the high level of a common sympathy, 
in which, as at great moments of our war, the w 7 hole 
heart of this Commonwealth has been melted into one. 
There is, indeed, something sublime in the healing and 
reconciling work Avhich is wrought by death. Out of 
that silence comes to us a deeper lessou than all the 
voices of life have ever been able to bring home to us. 

" That which the open book could never teach 
The closed one whispers." 



SERMON BY HENRY W. FOOTE. 295 

We feel this when we stand beside the humblest and 
poorest clay that has enshrined an immortal spirit Bui 
how much more when it is one who has been a power 
in the land, whose name has been a watchword of pas- 
sionate admiration and of intensest opposition, who has 
been a factor in the history of a tremendous period, 
not to be left out in the tracing of causes and results ! 
When sudden stillness falls on such a one, and all the 
tumult of tongues is quieted or turned to a rivalry i„ 
praise of things not always so greatly valued while they 
were with us, how falsely does it seem that we speak 
of him who brings this to pass as "the king of terrors"! 
Bather does he seem to come as the angel of peace 
And we may well say, with Sir Walter Raleiffh, " O 
eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could 
advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, 
thou hath clone ; and whom all the world hath flattered, 
thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. 
Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched great- 
ness, all the pride and ambition of man, and covered it 
all over with these two narrow words, * Hie jacet.'" 
Yes ! He covers over those things which partook of 
mortal weakness and infirmity; but the things which 
are immortal, great memories of great gifts, faithful 
thoughts of faithfulnesses to conscience, tried experience 
of long fidelity, — these are not covered, but now first 
begin to be revealed and fruitful in the fullest sense, 
as the seeds of a flower fall from the bursting capsule 
on fertile ground. 

There is no higher calling in human society than that 
of the public service iu a nation of freemen. Ambition 



296 CHARLES SUMNEE. 

in this direction is a worthy ambition. It is the duty 
of every man that he should be ready to meet the 
obligation of such service if it comes to him ; we should 
train our children to this readiness as one of the most 
imperative duties of manhood. But this ambition may 
be a lamp to lighten the path of him who walks in it, 
with lofty purposes, thorough preparations, righteous 
scorn of every mean and low thing ; or it may be a 
snare and pitfall to his conscience, causing him to stumble 
in winding and slippery ways, — if he reach the coveted 
place only dragging down its honor to his own base level. 
The one is a noble flame, kindling the spirit to climb the 
hard 

" Steep, where Fame's proud temple shines afar," 

And to write one's name high among the benefactors of 
the human race : the other is the degradation and often 
the ruin of the nation which it plagues. But as the 
public service is perhaps the highest, and certainly the 
most shining, so is it also the most difficult way of duty. 
I say nothing of the storms of obloquy from foes, or 
the beclouding influence of flattery from false or unwise 
friends. These may be hard to endure or to resist ; but 
the arduousness of high responsibility is not here, but 
in the responsibility itself. For consider what various 
qualifications — and how impossible to unite in a single 
person — are demanded to meet all the exigencies of a 
great place in the councils of a nation. What kind of 
man should a great people desire to fulfil all the ideal 
possibilities of high public service ? He should be, 
should he not, a combination of the recluse scholar and 



SERMON BY HENRY W. FOOTE. 297 

of the practical man of affairs ; wise with the wisdom 
of books and with the deeper wisdom of experience in 
human nature; reading the history of the past as an 
open page, and learning from it the lessons so easy for 
a nation to be taught by others' experience,— since all 
nations are made up of the same human nature,— so 
costly for a nation to be taught by its own mistakes; 
reading the characters of men by that trained instinct 
which cannot be deceived. He should be practised in 
the school of statesmanship, that highest and most diffi- 
cult of arts, which consists not in managing men by 
their low and base motives, for mere party success, but 
in shaping the policy, whether commercial or moral, of 
a great nation, with far-seeing perception of the causes 
that lead to prosperity or to decay. He should be 
kindled by the ardor of great convictions of truth and 
righteousness, ready to face unpopularity for the faith 
that is in him, yet never hasty or unjust; with a calm, 
deep comprehension of the views most opposed to his 
own, able to do justice to their convictions, and to find 
every ground of conciliation and mutual respect. Strong 
with a commanding personality, and with powers able 
to compel respectful recognition, he should fulfil that 
Eastern proverb which says, "A man that knoweth the 
just value of himself doth not perish," yet should have 
that respect for others' judgment which most surely 
wins their assent to the influence of a stronger nature, 
and should be untinged by that self-reference which 
centres the universe in itself. Eloquent with a manly 
strain, the power of his persuasion should never be 
embittered by words of personality or scorn. To bor- 

38 



298 CHARLES SUMNER. 

row a figure from science, the spectrum of his speech 
should be rich in the rays of light, rather than in those 
of heat. He should be before his time in vision, yet 
with his time in comprehending sympathy ; with forward- 
looking sight, but backward-reaching hand, to lift his 
people to his level. Must we say, in the Republic 
which Washington founded, in the State which sent the 
incorruptible Pickering to his counsels in war and peace, 
and has inscribed the names of John Adams and John 
Quincy Adams on the roll of his successors, that such 
a public servant must have an integrity above suspicion, 
with hands clean from money-getting and from office- 
seeking, — that he should have a lofty independence and 
a single eye to the public good ? We live in a day 
when these plain dictates of honor and conscience are 
distinctions to be named with praise. He should be 
crystal pure from the vices of passion or of meanness, 
clad in an asbestos robe of principle to walk through 
the fires of the temptations which beset public life with- 
out so much as the smell of smoke upon his garments. 
He should sit at the feet of no human master, but he 
should have sat at the feet of Christ. The eternal 
principles of His Gospel of righteousness should glow 
in his heart, and the wisdom of his law of kindness 
should pervade his conduct with its fragrant breath, 
while in the lowly faith of a disciple he should be "as 
a little child." Of a public servant so endowed, it may 
well be said, in the words of the prophet, " I will make 
a man more precious than fine gold : even a man than 
the golden wedge of Ophir." 

And now, if we look at the distinguished record of 



SERMON BY HENRY W. FOOTE. 299 

that eminent servant of the nation whose finished life is 
close to our thoughts to-day,— not in the spirit of indis- 
criminate eulogy, but in the dispassionate attempl to 
anticipate the judgment of another generation, with thai 
frank independence of judgment which he himself sig- 
nally illustrated, we shall surely say, Some of these 
great qualities Senator Sumner had in abounding meas- 
ure ; in others he was lacking. Perhaps no man ever 
lived so all-sided as to have them all: he who has the 
greater part of them must stand high in the remem- 
brance of a grateful country, especially when the traits 
which distinguish him are those which the land needs 
to brace its conscience and renew the integrity of its 
will. 

It has been the fortune of Mr. Sumner to be asso- 
ciated more intimately than any other public man with the 
most agitating questions of our time. And this was no 
accident, but essential in the very nature of the man. 
From the very beginning, his character was a blendiug 
of two sides of character rarely united, — strenuous self- 
culture, and earnest, if not defiant, championship of the 
redress of wrongs. I do not need here to retrace the 
familiar story in detail, or to recapitulate what is in part 
so well known to his fellow-townsmen, and is in large 
part written on the history of the country itself. Of 
the years of study in our Boston schools, at the neigh- 
boring University (to which his noble bequest has testi- 
fied to his enduring filial affection), in his close relation 
of pupil with master with Judge Story, of his studious 
years at foreign universities and in London, at a time 
when foreign study was comparatively rare, lie might 



300 CHARLES SUMMER. 

truly have said, in the words of the English poet whom 
he loved so well : — 

" When I was yet a child, no childish play 
To me was pleasing; all my mind was set 
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do 
What might be public good; myself I thought 
Born to that end, born to promote all truth, 
All righteous things." 

He returned here with marked distinction at the same 
age at which Milton again wrote to his friend Diodati, 
M Do you ask what I am thinking of? So may the good 
God help me, of immortality." Or it might have been 
the words of his own friend, De Tocqueville, in which 
he might have said, "Life is neither a pleasure nor a 
pain, but a serious business "which it is our duty to 
carry through and to terminate with honor." Eleven 
intervening years were tilled with various labors, — pro- 
fessional, literary, and philanthropic, — which I do not 
need to enlarge on here. Meantime, the ominous cloud 
which rose above the horizon with the annexation of 
Texas spread and darkened more and more ; the war 
with Mexico followed ; then came the dark days of 
1850, when a call rang through the land, parting friend 
from friend, brother from brother. The student of his- 
tory finds in those years the seeds sown which were 
harvested in civil war, and finds that Mr. Sumner was 
each year more prominent as one of the voices of the 
ever-growing conviction against slavery in New T Eng- 
land. He was a little more than forty years of age, — 
that stage of life when, as he once said, "according to 



SERMON BY HENRY W. FOOTE. 301 

a foreign proverb, a man has given to the world his 
full measnre,"-when he was chosen to succeed Mr. 
Webster in the Senate of the United States. The 
Quaker poet of New England tells rae that at this time 
he confessed to him that he had a great ambition, but 
not for political life,— that his ambition was to become 
a jurist, or to write history. In that desire he would 
have satisfied the needs of half of his nature,— the con- 
templative side; but the other half, the side of action, 
could never have been content without a great field of 
action and of power. And what a field it was on 
which the Senator from Massachusetts entered in thai 
stormy time ! As I have stood within the halls of the 
old Senate-chamber, plain and bare, which shook with 
the thunders of Webster's reply to Hayne, or within 
the palatial new chamber, which saw the working out 
of the drama of the civic side of the great war for the 
Union, and the associations of the place have crowded 
upon me, and I have remembered what echoes those 
walls would give could they but speak what they had 
heard, it has seemed to me that no place on earth was 
such a sphere for worthy action or such a point of lev- 
erage for the eloquence which would not end in words, 
but shape the public will of a nation. Rufus Chojilc 
who knew it well, wrote to Mr. Sumner, "How does 
the Senate strike you? The best place this day on 
earth for reasoned and thoughtful yet stimulant public 
speech." "When I think what it requires," wrote Mr. 
Sumner himself, on his election, "I am obliged to say 
that its honors are all eclipsed by its duties." To such 
a sphere the Senator from Massachusetts came, — one of 



302 CHARLES SUMMER. 

the youngest of that august body, without experience 
in public affairs, the bold and outspoken representative 
of a small minority in Congress and of a growing fire 
in the North. Ten days ago he was the senior member 
of the body, trained by twenty-three years of its great 
duties, — a longer sum of years than the office had been 
held by any Massachusetts Senator since the foundation 
of the Eepublic, — and he had seen the words, which 
when he spoke them were deemed the enthusiasm of a 
fanatic, surpassed by the stupendous reality of the his- 
tory through which we have lived. He might have 
applied in his own case the words in which Mr. Mill, 
in his autobiography, speaks of some matters in his 
own parliamentary career: "My advocacy of" them was 
"at the time looked upon by many as personal whims 
of my own ; but the great progress since made by those 
opinions, and especially the response made from almost 
all parts of the kingdom to the demand, fully justified 
the timeliness of those movements, and have made what 
was undertaken as a moral and social duty a personal 
success." The fiery heats of those years before the war 
the next generation can never know ; for the battle 
which they will have to fight has but one side, — the 
fight of honesty against corruption : while the hardest 
part of the struggle which preceded the downfall of 
Slavery was that men at the North, equally good, equally 
true, were on opposite sides, and each could hardly 
avoid misjudging the other. " The high contention " is 
now " hidden by the little handful of earth " ; but in its 
record future generations will trace the manifest upheaval 
of the tremendous forces which were to shake the nation 



SEKMOK BY HENl^T W. FOOTE. 303 

to its foundations. It was the fateful blow struck by a 
mad hand in answer to words spoken by him in his place 
as Senator which made Mr. Sumner a symbol of the 
Northern idea. From that hour, the silence of his 
suffering spoke with a louder tongue than his most 
intense words. Then came the war, when the strife of 
tongues gave way to the strife of arms; and for ten 
years, as Chairman of the Senate Committee of Foreign 
Relations, he filled one of the most important posts in 
the Government so as to win the respect alike of eneniirs 
and friends; and then three years of loneliness as "a 
voice crying in a desert, Make the crooked straight 
and the rough places plain"; and the scarred warrior, 
who had been in the forefront of the battles of his time, 
passed from storm into rest. He had reached what he 
himself once called "the grand climacteric, that Cape 
of Storms in the sea of human existence." 

He was buried with the mighty mourning of a sovereign 
State, as befitted the first Senator from Massachusetts 
(with one exception only) who ever died in office, — the 
Senator w T ho had held office for nearly a generation of 
incorruptible life, the faithful voice of liberty and jus- 
tice. Such is the barest outline of the external history 
of those tremendous years when "the fountains of the 
great deep were broken up," and that commanding 
presence was always where the storm was wildest. 

And now, when we ask for the secret of his power, 
we find it, first, in that which was a weakness as well 
as a strength, — namely, the strong imperiousness of 
his convictions. He could not overstate them, they 
were so pronounced and positive ; nor could he easily 
deal justly with opponents. Political charity is the 



304 CHARLES SUMNEK. 

rarest of the virtues, — rarer, by a strange law, in pro- 
portion to the moral and philanthropic quality of the 
opinions which one holds. The very fact that con- 
science and the sense of right are so engaged makes it 
well-nigh impossible to see how the conscience of hon- 
orable and good men may be engaged in adverse views. 
O hard fate, when the sense of justice to an oppressed 
race contended with the sense of duty to a bond whose 
rupture might cause the sun of the Union to go down 
in blood, and good men among us, both hating the 
giant wrong, both loving the starry constellation of the 
States, were sundered by an impassable gulf! It was 
in the nature of the man who swung what he called 
"the great Northern hammer" to strike hard and stern 
blows ; and if in his record are found words which pass 
the mutual respect of high debate, or which follow the 
method of prophetic denunciation rather than that of 
statesmanlike conciliation, we cannot doubt that now, 
out of the wisdom of death, he would speak to us to 
say that if he could live his life over, he would do 
some things differently. 

But other men have had convictions as strong and 
imperious as his without becoming identified with them 
as the acknowledged exponent and representative of a 
principle. His strength was in the identity of his prin- 
ciple with that of New England. He was "a Puritan 
idealist." In all its differences of form, there lived 
in him that most persistent type, which has impressed 
its character on the civilization of our whole country, 
which was strong enough to subdue granite and ice 
and make a home for their children. The Puritans 
were impracticable men, — a projectile cast into Eng- 



SERMON BY HENRY W. FOOTE. 305 

land, of such tremendous explosive force that when it 
burst, the fragments flew across three thousand miles of 
ocean. They were men of narrow conscience, and like 
some strong stream, the deeper and the more resistless 
in its flow because of the very narrowness. Their 
indomitable spirit is cast into a w T ord by "Andrew 
Fletcher, whose heroical uprightness amid the trials of 
his time, has become immortal in the saying, that he 
'would readily lose his life to serve his country, but 
would not do a base thing to save it.'" The children 
of the Puritans are still the same ; and we, who are of 
them, can afford to acknowledge that the fathers would 
have been sometimes hard to live among, and that there 
is danger that even conscience and zeal for righteous- 
ness may be at times obstinate and one-sided. But one 
thing is certain, — that when these things are in the line 
of the ideas of justice, freedom, abstract right, they 
have irresistible power, over the mind of the race which 
has grown on our rocky soil. Men who are tempered 
with this spirit are better fitted to point a thunderbolt 
than to weld a nation; they belong iu the time when 
controversy has passed beyond compromise. So far 
from sympathizing with that rule of practical states- 
manship which old Hesiod sings, — 

" Half is more than the whole," 

There can be for them nothing less than the ideal whole. 
The only rule of yielding or giving up what the)' know- 
is in that saying of another Greek, — 

" We must sacrifice to Truth alone." 
39 



306 CHARLES SUMMER. 

It was the power of the Senator that he voiced this 
intense Puritan strain in the ideas of the New England 
conscience. Said one of his most ardent friends of 
him, in the heat of a political campaign : He is " pa- 
tient in labor, untiring in effort, boundless in resources, 
terribly in earnest, . . . the Stonewall Jackson of 
the floor of the Senate, . . . both ideologists, both 
horsed on an idea." 

Essentially characteristic of this moral intensity, which 
makes the typical New England character like one of 
those Iceland geysers, a boiling hot spring in the heart 
of the glacier, is an elevated confidence in one's own 
intentions, tending in small natures to self-absorption, 
but in great natures to utter absorption in a great 
cause, and giving an assurance of right which could 
make the Senator choose for the motto to his collected 
works, the proud appeal with which he would speak to 
future generations, those words of Leibnitz : " Veniet 
fortasse aliud tempus, dignius nostro, quo debellatis 
odiis, Veritas triumphabit. Hoc mecum opta, lector, et 
vale." One who knew and loved him well sums up 
this characteristic in these words in a letter to me : 
" He struck for the right and was sure he saw it. He 
had a sublime confidence in his own moral sagacity, 
greater than I have ever seen in any man; and, let 
me add, events usually justified such confidence." 

And this zealous intensity in the man was served by 
an indomitable power of work, such as has rarely been 
equalled and probably never surpassed by any one in 
the public service. 1 have the testimony of two of his 
private secretaries to the fact that his strength and 



SERMON BY HENRY W. FOOTE. 307 

fidelity in the unseen labors of his duty as Senator, 
and on the most responsible Committee of Foreign 
Relations, exeeeded anything that can be imagined. 
He "toiled terribly." The key-note of his life is struck 
in an early lecture of his on "The Employment of 
Time," whose text is the famous exclamation of Titus, 
"I have lost a day!" and he might well leave as his 
legacy to those who would profit by his example the 
words of Seneca: "Vita, si scias uti, longa est." 
High office was to him no holiday perch, hut an 
opportunity for more strenuous work, nor did anything 
so chafe him as enforced abstention therefrom. All 
the wide resources of a various learning were rein- 
forced continually by special preparations, and he car- 
ried the student's habit of toil into the position where 
men are apt to think that they are officially infallible 
on all questions, from finance and diplomacy to the 
filling of the pettiest office. 

And this is strikingly shown by that monumenl of 
labor, yet uncompleted, — the edition of his Works. 
As during the recent days I have read through the 
seven volumes, I have been impressed with many 
things, but with none more than this. From that 
oration on "The True Grandeur of Nations," which 
sounded again, in such rich and high-wrought strain, 
the note which Rufus Choate had struck the year before 
in the United States Senate, when he said, " War is 
the most ridiculous of blunders, the most tremendous 
of crimes, the most comprehensive of evils,"— an idea 
emphasized in these words, which form the key-note of 
Mr. Sumner's oration: "War is known as the Last 



308 CHARLES SUMXEE. 

Reason of Kings. Let it be no reason of our Repub- 
lic : " — to his last speech in the Senate, there are the 
same characteristics, — a labored affluence of illustration 
from the widest sources of study, a style elaborate 
even to excess, but, throughout, the sense that here is 
one who has made thorough preparation for the great 
office of advising the Elders of the Republic. 

And one can hardly read these volumes without a 
deeper realization how truly the Senator was not only 
a prominent figure, but a powerful actor in the greatest 
chapter of modern history. Friends will find nothing 
save to admire ; old enemies, much to differ in ; and 
those who have been independent from personal ties or 
by-gone discords, both much to admire and something 
to regret. But all must agree in reading the super- 
scription of his name on page after page of most 
eventful annals. If Abraham Lincoln shall stand forth 
against the black background of the war as the Crom- 
well of our great struggle, only far purer, more 
unselfish than the Ironside Puritan was, the name of 
the persistent friend of emancipation, who stood to him 
in wellnigh as close a relation as did his Latin Secretary 
to the Protector, will shine in the same constellation. 
The future historian will perhaps picture the two in 
scenes which are already recorded, — the Senator taking 
his French friend with him to see the morning levee 
which that kindly heart, all burdened with Presidential 
cares, yet found time to give daily to the poor who 
needed him most, — the sick soldier or the poor widow, 
— with the invitation, "Come with me and see St. 
Louis under the Oak of Vincennes " ; or the President, 



SERMON BY HENRY W. EOOTE. ,°>09 

a week before his martyrdom, reading aloud to the 
Senator, on the deck of the steamboat that carried 
them to evacuated Richmond, those prophetic lines in 
Macbeth : — 

" Duncan is in his grave : 
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well. 
Treason has done his worst : nor steel, nor poison, 
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing 
Can touch him farther ! " 



But no future historian will be able to describe in 
all its dramatic intensity the struggle which involved 
these men, so different, and the parts of the nation 
wdiich they represented, — the one eager always for the 
highest and furthest thins:, the other gauging the exact 
mind of the people with that pre-eminent political 
sagacity. He will try to describe the one "crying 
aloud and sparing not," as the voice of the most 
advanced conscience of the North, the other telling 
him "You are only ahead of me a month or six- 
weeks," — till at last the proclamation seals the policy 
of the government. He will describe the growth of 
the institution of Slavery on this continent, from the 
time when the Mayflower, with its cargo of liberty, and 
the first slave ship, with its cargo of human bondage, 
were crossing the ocean at the same time in 1620, to 
the time when, like the genie of Arabian fable, the 
little cloud, released from the hold of that vessel, 
darkened all the land, a giant in strength. He will 
tell, too, how the man who spoke the intensest senti- 
ment of the North was ever urging the principle of 



310 CHAELES SUJNCNEJt. 

absolute liberty, and would venture where it seemed 
wild to go, as the Douglas who bore the heart of 
Bruce to the Holy Land threw his sacred trust far 
before him into the hosts of the infidel, to witness that 
he would never give over his advance ; and then he 
will tell how the great work was done by the hands 
of men differing widely in their sentiment even on the 
great question of universal liberty, but agreeing in 
being willing to die for their country, — that not the 
voice alone of eloquent oratory, but the deeds of 
devoted patriotism wrought the marvel of freedom. 
Let yonder marble speak, with its proud record of 
men who could be silent and give their lives ; to tes- 
tify how the great power of the land stood behind the 
Act of Emancipation, and made it, instead of a bit of 
paper, a reality ! And then think of those long rows 
of colored faces, the representatives of four grateful 
millions, that on Monday last gleamed with hardly 
suppressed emotion, as of men parting with a mighty 
friend ; and remember the coat-of-arms of Lord Exmouth, 
on which "was emblazoned a figure never before known 
in heraldry, — a Christian slave holding aloft the cross, 
and dropping his broken fetters:' Happy, indeed, is he 
whose name is forever linked with the eternal ideas of 
freedom and justice ! 

The lofty and permanent lesson which remains with 
us from the life of Senator Sumner is one peculiarly 
needed in our time, — that of independent loyalty to the 
best conscience. Whatever else fails, that cannot fail. 
Not always does success come ; not alwa}'s do the 
wonderful forces of public awakening, the madness of 



SERMON BY HENRY W. FOOTE. 311 

enemies, the awful arbitrament of war, justify the polit- 
ical seer with the attainment of his vision. "Prophets 
and kings have died without the sight." But for fame. 
as well as for one's own inward peace, the surest war- 
rant is the boldest venture. Trust in the eternal truths 
of conscience and duty and God! The sober wisdom 
of that homely precept of one of our great poets, 
"Hitch your wagon to a star," will be acknowledged in 
the end. 

Who now remembers, in his dispraise, that John 
Milton staked his all on a losing cause, that he was an 
extremist and a fanatic, that he spoke hot and bitter 
words against the enemies of his party? But that 
which shines in him is the pure and loft} r spirit, the 
consecration of great powers to his country's service in 
a time of storm, — putting aside the plans of quiet study 
and literary ease, — the great pleadings for liberty and 
righteousness, the soul that " was like a star and dwelt 
apart." 

We learn, by contrast with those things which in the 
presence of great death compel our reverence, what are 
the dangers of the land. What kind of man is he 
whose public service will prove the public servitude, 
and will drag a nation towards its fall? We have 
already described him by opposites. He will be one 
educated enough to know the evil side of men, able 
enough to compel their reluctant help, wise in the 
secrets of corruption, who has grown rich from the 
misfortunes of his country, who mounts to power over 
heaps of blackened reputations, and uses every office 



312 CHARLES SUMNER. 

but as a round in the ladder of his ambition ; who rales 
by fear, yet whose friendship is even more blasting 
than his hatred. Detected again and again in wiles 
which would wreck the good name of better men, he 
will almost persuade the multitude to believe his shame 
to be a new form of virtue. If ever such a man should 
come, woe to the nation which he tricks towards its 
doom! for then, indeed, "Politics become a game, and 
principles are the counters which are used." 

But such men would have little power of evil in a 
country, if there did not exist grave elements of danger 
in the atmosphere of the time, in those murky disposi- 
tions of the public mind to which they act as the light- 
ning-rod on a lowering thunder-cloud, to draw the fatal 
shock. First among these, we must name the worship 
of money for money's own sake. So long as men and 
women believe that this has any worth in itself, apart 
from the question how it has been won, and will let 
foul gains win a fair name, teaching their children by 
precept to seek above all things to be honest, and by 
practice to seek above all things to be rich ; so long as 
they fear the wholesome frugality of our incorrupt 
ancestors more than they fear dishonor, and add a 
double bribe to the temptation to get wealth in doubtful 
ways, by respecting it after it is so got; when the 
prizes of political preferment are gilded with unclean 
perquisites, and leaders high in place sway the nation 
through the purse-strings of their base tools and batten 
on the spoils of industry ; so long as a considerable 
part of mankind look leniently on Judas, because he 
carried the bag, we may well be thankful for one 



SERMON BY HENRY W. FOOTE. 313 

example for lofty integrity, so pure and high that he 
could say, "People talk about the corruption of Wash- 
ington: I have lived here all these years and have seen 
nothing of it,"_so true that no slander dared sully his 
reputation with the suspicion of a bribe. 

And then there is the worship of power for powers 
own sake. Forgetting that ability, apart from moral 
gifts, is the sharpest cutting-tool, sure to turn in the 
hand that uses it unless it is grasped by firm principle, 
our people are tempted to idolize the very qualities by 
which the angels fell, and in which the chief of fallen 
angels is also chief. They count impudence and brazen 
audacity a sign of power; but do they think what 
power mere unscrupulousness may give a man? The 
moment he flings honor and decency to the winds, his 
power for evil in word and deed is multiplied tenfold. 
What then? Shall we straightway make the lack of 
scruple one of the cardinal virtues, and teach our chil- 
dren to take the "Not" out of the ten commandments? 
Or shall we turn again to the reassuring thought of a 
man of state who could hold high ofiice for nearly a 
generation; whose motto was those words of Story, 
"No man ever stands in the way of another"; whom, 
having held such ofiice, none accuse of turning it into 
an engine for private advantage; who sought sincerely 
to make the euds he aimed at in it his "country's, 
God's, and truth's " ; who believed himself the servant, 
not the master, of the Commonwealth, whose honors 
sought him, and were unmarketed as they were uu- 
bo ught? 

And yet again we are in danger of disbelief in the 



40 



314 CHARLES SUMNER. 

honor of the honorable. In the hot and heavy fumes 
of accusation and of proven failure to do clear duty 
which befog the air, when great names are tarnished and 
honors well earned are cheaply lost, the tempter whispers 
that it is so the world over, — " There is none upright ; 
no, not one." Who shall measure the inspiration which 
there is in such an hour in the unspotted example of a 
great integrity towering above the mean rivalries and 
small ambitions of petty greatness as a rocky New 
England summit towers over the surrounding plain? 

And if we are tempted to be discouraged, seeing a 
wide distrust of educated skill ; that the community is 
prone to think that statecraft comes by nature or in flat- 
tering the mob ; that it is often slow to seek the service 
of the best-trained gifts, and hasty to condemn the 
long-tried and upright public servant ; — there is at least 
the alleviation of seeing it wake to a sense of its loss 
when one of its best-furnis'hed and most faithful woes 
out of the contumely and fickleness of these earthly 
noises to where the silence is broken only by God's 
" Well done ! " 

There is, I know, a theory which writes a new moral 
law of party obligations, and makes infraction of those 
behests one of the deadly sins. According to this view, 
it is enough that men claim to represent the moral 
sentiment of the country, to enable them to communicate 
a sort of grace to any sinner whom they may sanctify 
by a nomination for office. The Church of Rome is 
sometimes accused of holding that a priest, though a bad 
man, can equally administer the sacraments ; and there 
are those who hold that if duly named for the place, 



SEKMCW BY HEXHY W. EOOTE. 315 

the most corrupt man is fitted to become .a high-priest 
in the nation's temple; there are those who hold that 
we elect men to keep the national conscience and are 
absolved from any public duty but doing as we are told. 
When we thus sell ourselves for nothing to the will of 
power, farewell indeed to the hope of our high heritage 
from God ! If it were so, the free spirit might well say 
with Lacordaire, "I am forced to leave the scene by a 
secret instinct of my liberty, in presence of an age which 
had no longer all its own. I saw that in my ideas, in 
my language, and in my past, I also was at liberty, and 
that my time was come for disappearing like the rest." 

But it is not so. Christian men and women, who 
have to do with forming the better mind of the Repub- 
lic, see to it that you do your part to scatter these 
miasmatic vapors which threaten to stifle our best life, 
— and all will yet be well. Hold up afresh a higher 
standard of duty before others; hold to it those win mi 
you place in power, — and test their claims by it; and 
that you may do so consistently, hold yourself to it. 
Enforce the Christian law of conscience, as personal in 
public as in private duty. Honor, as the great outburst 
of popular respect has honored, the man who tries to 
do his duty. 

Ah, to what wholesome lessons does the event bring us 
back, whose shadow is still over us! I end as I began : 
death teaches us much that life could never teach ;— 
the great and solemn lesson of charity, that searching 
spirit of love which will find the truth in a man and 
hold it fast, and help it in all its strong and radiant 
power; the faith in the ultimate victory of the truth, 



316 CHARLES SUMNER. 

which will count all else loss if we cau only lose our- 
selves in that triumphant, much-enduring service ; the 
trust in character, in that rocky faithfulness to one's best 
and deepest convictions, which 

" Obeys the voice at eve 
Obeyed at prime." 

And this is the meaning of that wonderful outpouring 
of the o-reat heart of a Commonwealth which we our- 
selves have seen. 

" And they buried him in the city of David among 
the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both 
toward God and toward his house ; " " and all Israel 
mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord." 



CHARLES SUMNER. 



Born in Boston, January 6, 1811. 

Entered Harvard College, 1826; Graduated, 1830. 

Admitted to the Bar, 1834. 

Elected United States Senator, 1851 ; Re-elected, 1857, 1863, 1869. 

Died in Washington, March 11, 1874. 

Buried in Mount Auburn, 

March 16, 1874. 



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